A Fragile Heart
by Gunmare
Summary: After being berated by his friends for not understanding Rias's feeling, Issei almost goes berserk for thinking the wrong conclusion of his relationship with Rias till he was stopped by a cloaked man, who offered Issei an opportunity to live in a world he desires. But seeing the world he desired gone horribly wrong, Issei must do everything he can to back to the world he once knew.
1. Prologue

**_A Fragile Heart_**

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**Author's Note: Before starting to read this, I want to let you know that this story isn't going to tie in A New Opportunity or my other stories for now and is going to be part of a three part series, where this is part one of three. This story isn't going to harem like for now and its going to be a lot "different" how I used to write since this story is going to be third person rather than first person. Also I don't own dxd or anything connected to it. **

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"Someone is Talking"

_'Someone speaking in Thought' _

_"Raynare is speaking or Flashback" _

**"_Sealed Spirits are talking (Aka beings like Ddraig and Albion)_" **

_**"Chants are being spoken" **_

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_**Prologue**_

"….Bu….Buchou, where are you going?" It was the question that Issei wished he could take back. It was the moment after he and his master, Rias Gremory, spoke to the Lady Phenex regarding her daughter Ravel attending Kuoh Academy. After speaking to Lady Phenex, Rias headed straight towards the door, which Issei stopped her by simply asking where was she going.

"….Ise, will you protect me?" Rias asked without looking back at him.

_'…Why do you ask such a thing suddenly…?' _Issei thought to himself uncomfortably. _'I don't know, but my answer is obvious!'_

"Of course, I will protect Buchou!" Issei decided to respond with great dedication.

"…And Asia?" Rias asked.

"Eh? Yes, I will also protect Asia!" Though he was off guarded at first, Issei still replied with the same enthusiasm as before.

"And Akeno?"

"Akeno-san? That is obvious. But….. What happened, suddenly asking me such a thing?"

Issei still doesn't get it. He doesn't get what his master's intention are at all.

"…Hey, Ise."

"Y-Yes…."

"…To you, 'what' am I? 'Who' am I?" Rias asked with a lower tone.

"…" It wasn't that Issei understood the meaning of Rias's question, but he hesitated to answer it. If he answered it poorly, it might have hurt the relationship he has with Rias, but at the same time Rias needed an answer from him. So decided to answer it the best way he could "….Ummm, to me Buchou is Buchou and-"

The moment he said that.

"-! Baka!"

She scolded him mixed with a sound of her crying. Rias rushes away from the spot, and she left the clubroom.

"Rias-oneesama!" Asia goes after Buchou. Asia turns to Issei after she reaches the door. Her eyes…are soaked with tears. She was crying…? "Ise-san! You are horrible! It's too much! Why can't you…..! Why can't you understand Onee-sama's feelings!?" Saying that, Asia goes after Buchou.

Having Asia also say that to him, Issei just stood there lost and dumbfounded.

_'…Wa, wait a sec! What's the meaning of this!? Why is Asia also mad at me!?' _Issei ponder with a bewildered expression on his face.

"That wasn't right, Ise-kun." Kiba makes a sigh while nodding his head to the side.

"….N-not right as in what?" Ise asked in hope to figure out what just happened.

"That, precisely. Geez, you are so….. I can understand very well what the girls are going through." Kiba put his fingers on his forehead as he let out another disappointed sigh.

"Exactly. It's natural for Rias and Asia-chan to get mad." Akeno-san concurred with frustrated tone.

"Even I, who is dense at these sorts of things thought you were a bit off, Ise." Xenovia looked at Ise with cold eyes that were half-closed!

"Mou! Ise-kun, sure is a no-no! Poor Rias-san!" Even Irina was mad.

"….You are the worst." Koneko said her infamous quote in the coldest way possible.

_'I don't know what I did wrong! I just don't know!'_ Ise began to feel uncomfortable, confused, and pressured from the cold demeanour his friends were giving him. Maybe if he talked to Rias, they could handle things peacefully and resolve everything. But before he could even try to go, he was quickly stopped by Akeno.

"The current Ise-kun will just hurt her more even if you go after her, so don't." Issei felt appalled from the inside from what Akeno just said straight up his face so heartlessly. He never seen this cold side from the likes of Akeno.

"…Hey, Gasper. Am I really bad here?" Issei quickly turned to Gasper for support. Surely Gasper was going to help Issei out. For everything Issei has done for his young junior, Gasper should at least back him up for not being the villain here. But he was wrong.

"…Umm…. Yes, I think you are very bad….." Gasper said apologetically while twitching his body.

Issei quickly felt down. Then Ravel asks while panicking."U-Umm…..this is my mother's and my fault, right…? I'm sorry…."

_'Is it…Ravel's fault?'_ Issei thought to himself pathetically. _'It seemed like Buchou tried to leave after the communication between the Phoenix mother and child…'_

Akeno-san places her hand on Ravel's shoulders. 'Ravel-chan doesn't have to worry about it. Ise-kun's the most at fault here because he never tried to think about the crucial thing between Rias and himself until now." Akeno-san cheers her up like that, and she started to prepare for tea after urging Ravel to sit on the sofa.

Soon enough everyone began to go back to their regular selves while ignoring Issei, who's still not sure what was going on.

* * *

"Man, why is everyone acting like that… What do they want me to do…" Issei complained to himself as he sat down on a bench by playground. After what occurred in the club room, everyone but Issei continued to prepare for the school festival under Akeno-san's supervison. The atmosphere of that situation was settled down after Akeno-san took responsibility to find Rias and Asia. Issei himself decided to leave the campus to clear his head on what just happened.

So far it wasn't going well for him. What happened after the talk with Lady Phenex and the night before during the sauna incident. Rias was acting differently all of the sudden and what made things worse for him was that everyone was taking Rias's side and putting the blame on him. But why, Issei wondered to himself.

Lately he began to noticed that not only Rias but her mother, and everyone else that was around is seeking something from him. And he knew it was something that has to do with his relationship with Rias. Well, it was what Akeno told him about how inconsiderate he was about the relationship between him and Rias.

A thought that Issei remembered thinking about before the meeting came back to him. In his head were two major points. He didn't understand what Rias was feeling and he hurt her feelings without realizing it. The other was something he couldn't bring himself to think any further about, but decided to anyway.

The other thing he was thinking was maybe... maybe... Rias might have romantic feelings for him. It would explain a lot. Like why she ended up moving into his house or how she shows him affection differently from Gasper and Kiba, who also her male servants. He thought about the kisses she gave him straight to his lips and the french kisses they shared.

The thought of their kiss brought a warm smile to his face.

He first thought that the love Rias gave him was the same love she shared towards all of her servants and thought she done stuff to him because he was younger than her and thought it was a way to connect her with the guy members of her peerage and it was a special service. But if that was the case, she would have done the same thing she done to Issei to Kiba and Gasper. There was an obvious difference how she treated Issei with the rest of the guys of her peerage.

Ever since the night Issei saved Rias from getting married to Raiser Phenex, she quickly became fixated on love. She had put so much pure and innocent obsession into it, which Issei thought it was normal since she always dream of marrying the man who loves her for herself and not for her heritage.

Another thought came to him. It was the physical contact she had with him. If Rias, who has pure thoughts regarding the relationship between man and woman, would do such seductive actions to him, was it because he was her adorable servant? No, she wouldn't do something like that. Rias has a strong sense towards her chastity.

Then here came the next topic that Issei didn't want to explore the possibility.

The topic was regarding whether or not if Rias actually has feelings for him. If that was the case, then her attitude towards him matched up, but...

_'N-No! There is no way! She's my master! I'm her servant! Her servant devil! I'm Rias Gremory's Pawn! B-But. But! I-If Buchou does indeed like me, then...?' _The forehead of Issei began to sweat as he goes into deeper thought of the idea of Rias liking him. _'_I_ like Buchou. Also as a master, but more than that as a single girl! During these six months, I have seen many sides of her, the magnificent side, her noble side, her glamorous side, her gentle side, her angry side, the part where she has big oppai, her cute side, the part where she has a smooth skin, her spoiled side, and the part where she is like my Onee-sama yet she acts as the same age as me, and then I started see her as a normal girl and…'_

To him, she was the ideal woman. He wanted to go out with her. He wanted to surpass the master-servant relationship, and date her as man and woman. It's what Issei dream of. It's what he wished for. It's what he truly desire. If she truly shared the same feelings as him, then it would bring Issei a greatest joy than being a harem king.

_'I'm in love with her! I love her! I've always loved her! I just love Buchou and-. I want to confess to her-.' _He started to have weird sweat coming form his face. His hands began to shake as well. Everyone in the park began to notice Issei, who looked like he was going to have some sort of nervous breakdown. _'But, what would I do if I'm wrong? The relationahip we currently have will end… I don't want that!'_

_"Ufufufu..." _The park quickly became abandon and Issei wasn't able to detect anyone's presence nearby, but he was able to hear a voice. He quickly snapped out of his train and thought and got off the bench. _"Do you really think that that girl really wants you?"_

"Who's there!?" Issei asked loudly crossed the park.

_"Hahahahaha...! What you desire is nothing more than a fantasy," _the voice said._"If you ask for more... the precious relationship you have now will definitely end."_

Issei widen his eyes from what the voice just said. Could the voice be right? If Ise asked more from the relationship with Rias, could it possible end badly for them, which Rias ends up rejecting him.

_"Yeah, it would definitely turned out like that." _The voice said with a ridicule tone.

Issei grinned his teeth in irritation. "Shut up! You don't know anything!"

_"Oh? Don't I?"_

A gentle breeze came by the park as a girl appeared within the thin air in front of Issei. The attire she's wearing consisted of a short black dress with a small, light purple jacket on top. Issei widen his eyes in realization of who the girl was.

"Raynare...!?" Issei gasped.

He couldn't believe it. The first woman that Issei genuinely loved. The same woman who manipulated him with his feelings and attempted to take his and Asia's life. The same woman who Ise hit with his own hands in rage. The same woman who was killed by the current woman that Issei fell in love with. She should dead, but Issei can see her right in front of him.

_"What's wrong?" _Raynare asked with a sneer on her face. _"Don't you miss me?"_

_"I don't want a filthy low-class Devil like you talking to me."_

At times he wondered if it was alright for him to talk with the girls from the Occult Research Club.

_"Ahahaha! Yeah, you are right! It was a very royal date! Thanks to it, I was very bored!"_

When he goes shopping with the girls, he wonders if they ever got bored being with him.

_-"I don't want a rotten brat like you calling my name"_

Issei want to say his master's name. He really does, but...

_"Ise-kun! Please save me! This Devil is trying to kill me! I love you! I love you so much! That's why, let's defeat this Devil together!"_

She begged for her life right in front of him. He could have spared her, but at that time it was proper for Raynare to be killed. She did such horrible things to Asia, and she even killed her once.

_"How boring." _Raynare frown out of boredom. _"I can't believe after all this time, you haven't changed a bit."_

_'Change?' _Issei wondered what Raynare was even trying to say.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Issei asked defensively. He summoned his Boosted Gear and began the counter down to enter his Balance Breaker. "I changed. I'm stronger and smarter than before. I'm more than powerful enough to kill you on my own."

_"I wasn't referring to that." _Raynare sighed. _"Do I need to repeat myself? You haven't changed since the last time I saw you. You are still the same gullible idiot you were even after you were reincarnated by that she devil."_

What is Raynare talking about? Issei changed a lot over these months after becoming a devil. He matured a lot physically and mentally-to some extent-for the last six months and accomplished a lot things that Raynare couldn't do on her own. Issei fought against many foes and even defeated an evil god and survived the fight against the True Longinus.

So what do she mean that Issei didn't "change" at all. What could Issei have missed that the last person he wanted alive was able to pick up? What was thing he was so blind to notice.

_'What... blind...' _The word blind repeated over in Issei's mind multiple times. Okay, Issei admitted that he wasn't the sharpest person and is nothing more than a power idiot who goes with his emotions. There were many times he got lost that he needed someone to help him explain things. Everyone in the Occult Research Club always get mad at him for being slow. Could it be that is the case, no wait it isn't either. If its being slow then, what does it has to do with Raynare? What does being blind have to do with Raynare, why does a manipulative and deceptive bitch who has done nothing more than use people for her benefit.. then it came him.

"No... It couldn't be..." Issei murmured to himself in denial. He put his hands on his head as he shook it while struggling to get the idea out of his head. "She couldn't... could she? No... I don't want to believe it..."

Was it possible that Rias was manipulating him from the every beginning? No, she couldn't. She wasn't the type of person who would deceive others. She isn't one of those snobbish high class devils who treats their devils like there is nothing to them. She and her clan cherish their servants and give them so much love and affection. The love and affection she shows to her peerage wants to make them to push hard and fight for... her.

_'No! She wasn't that type of person.'_ Issei thought. She could never stoop that low, could she? What if all those times Rias has had physical contact and the kisses she shared with him was part of her plan to keep him under her leash? And all those times she doesn't want Issei to get along with the other girls from the Occult Research Club? She always claiming that Issei was hers, along with his chastity, and none of the girls could have him. Did Rias fear that if Issei fell in love with some other girl, he would rather protect and listen to her rather than his own master?

It kind of made sense if he thought about it. Rias had hit the jackpot the moment she realized that Issei was the Red Emperor Dragon. She treated him special because she knew that Issei will do anything for her in return. She doesn't allow him to fall in relationship with other girls because she knew she'll lose her most powerful weapon. She was willing to allow low class devil like Issei to touch her because she knew that it would give him a power up, even if she has to endure the taboo nickname of Switch Princess.

And if Rias was truly manipulating, then could it be that her behaviour lately was nothing more than an act? Could it be possible that Rias only wanted Issei to show his love and she in return "reciprocate" his love in order Issei push harder for his match against Sairaorg Bael?

"No, no, no, no, no..." Issei got on his knees as tears run down his face and fall down to the ground. His heart is filled with nothing more than great sorrow. He wasn't sure what hurt him more. The fact that Rias actually manipulated him or that he fell for the same trick twice.

_"Hahahaha! So you finally figured it out!" _Raynare sneered. _"You've been duped all this time! That bitch is no better than I am! No wait, she's a lot worse than I ever was! Hahahaha!"_

Issei grinned his teeth as his blood pressure began to rise. Surge of adrenaline circulated throughout his body as his eyes sharpen into a murderous glare. His body began to emit a red ominous aura as Issei began to pant hazardously. He stood up with the scale mail attached to him.

**"_Partner! Calm down! You'll go berserk if you keep this up!_" **Issei could hear the voice of Ddraig, the spirit within his Boosted Gear, but Issei ignored his partner's plead.

**"_I, who is about to awaken am the Heavenly Dragon who has stolen the principles of domination from God! I laugh at the "infinite", and I grieve at the "dream"! I shall become the Red Dragon of Domination And I shall sink you to the depths of the crimson-_ ****Uak!"**

Before he had the chance to even finished his chant, Issei coughed out blood as he felt a sharp pain pierced through his chest. His slowly rolled his eyes down to see a tip of a sword sticking out of his chest.

_'...What...' _His rolled his eyes back up to see that Raynare was nowhere in sight before his body collapsed on the ground. _'...Was...' _His vision began to go blurry as Issei began to reflect on what he was going to do. _'...I...' _As everything around Issei began to blacken, last thing he saw was a magic circle coming out from the ground. _'...Doing?...'_

* * *

**Okay before I go I want to give out a shout out to the author of the Stray Red Emperor Dragon, IllusionDrawer for giving me the inspiration to write story. I did enjoyed how Issei went into Juggernaut Drive by accident and how none of the members of the ORC tried to comfort him like the LN did. I also enjoyed the interaction that Issei had with the ORC after the juggernaut drive and such. **

**I usually do a preview for the next chapter, but I won't for multiple reasons and one of the main one is next chapter there is going to be a huge twist that none of you will suspect. so see in the next chapter of A Fragile Heart **


	2. Prologue Pt 02

**_Prologue Pt 02_**

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**Author's Note: I'm greatly relieved how well the first chapter went well, which is very good. I've have very good news as well. I originally wanted this story to act as the prelude of a story which was going to be the sequel, but changed it to start working on my "Transcendent Saga", which the premise is similar to the Strayed Red Emeperor Dragon, but there are going to many twist and turns, which you're going to see in this chapter. I don't own DxD or anything related to the series. **

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Kiba began to notice something wrong with Gasper ever since they left campus to go to the supplies. He first took noticed on the way to the shopping district, where Gasper was lost in a train of thought. Gasper was so distracted in his thoughts that he nearly got run over twice on the way to the shopping district, where Kiba had to step-in and stop his junior from walking into traffic. When Gasper snapped out of his thoughts and Kiba had asked him what just happened, he goes back to his old timid and panicky self and apologized for not being more vigilant.

After making sure that his young friend wasn't zoning out anymore on their way to the shipping district, Kiba decided not to pry on what the young bishop was thinking earlier. It wasn't till after leaving the shopping district and heading back to the Kuoh Academy is when Kiba began to see the same deep in thought look Gasper had on his way to the shopping district.

"Is there something bothering you, Gasper-kun?" Kiba finally asked, causing the two boys stop walking.

"Huh?" Gasper shook his head as he was snapped back into to reality. He looked over at his senpai with uneasy smile on his face. "N-No Kiba-Senpai. I-I'm fine."

"You're sure? You've been like this ever since we left Kuoh Academy." Kiba pointed out. "If there is something that is bothering you, I think it's a good idea to share it with someone."

Gasper averted his eyes away from his senpai, looking a bit queasy. His body twitched in insecurity as he bit his lip. He looked back up at Kiba with introverted looked on his face. "W-Well t-there is something on my mind, b-but I-I can't say it."

"Why?" Kiba asked, raising a brow in curiosity.

"I-I don't want Kiba-senpai or anyone think less of me." Gasper confessed sheepishly, looking back down at the ground.

"Is it per chance the rating game match with Sairaorg Bael and his peerage?" It was the only thing Kiba could think of. Ever since knowing that the match between their master Rias and her cousin Sairaorg will have no restriction, Gasper became tense as each day has gone by. The young blonde bishop already felt that he was a liability to the team since he couldn't control his powers and can't do much on his own.

"N-No." Gasper shook his head to the side. "I-It's not that."

"Then what is it then?" Kiba asked concernedly. Kiba kneeled down to his junior's height and placed his hands on the Gasper's shoulder. "I promise I won't look down at you if you tell me what's eating you alive."

"You sure?" Gasper asked back for security.

"Of course." Kiba assured him with a calm smile.

"O-Okay... I'll tell you." Gasper said before swallowing his own saliva down his throat. He cleared his own throat and tugged the collar of his uniform before he talked. "W-Well I w-was thinking... that..." The young dhampir devil hybrid began to stutter nervously as he averted his eyes away from his senpai again.

"It's alright," Kiba assured him. "Remember, I won't think bad of you."

"..." Gasper looked up at Kiba before taking in a big breath. Gasper then said what was on his mind in one big shout. "I-I think... e-everyone in the club room was t-too harsh with Issei-senpai!"

"...!" Kiba widen his eyes in shock from what Gasper said to him. "We were... too harsh with Ise-kun."

"I'm sorry!" Gasper puts his arms around his face, like he was trying to shield himself as he apologized and kneeled down to the ground. "I-I been feeling guilty ever since then."

Kiba looked at Gasper stupefied, unsure how to reply back to his young junior. For a moment he thought that Gasper was a delusional for saying that, but now that he thought about it, could it be possible that he and the rest of the Occult Research Club members were a bit rough with Issei.

Issei deserved to be scold. He was too inconsiderate with Rias's feelings and everyone knew it. At the moment it felt right to rebuke Issei for being too so ignorant. So why did Gasper, who didn't sided with Issei during that time, felt guilty for not siding with him?

"Hey Gasper-kun, is it alright if I asked you something?" Kiba requested.

"Huh? What is it?" Gasper asked, slowly putting his arms down.

"Why did you think that we're too harsh on Ise-kun?"

"W-Well... I felt that we're bullying Ise-senpai... Ganging up on him... The way we treated him kind of remind me how I was treated... back home." Gasper confessed with eyes saddened and slightly wet. "Plus when Buchou asked Ise-senpai how he felt about her, I saw a familiar looked in his eyes. The look of fear... It was like Ise-kun was too scared to reply honestly with Buchou."

_'Scared?' _Kiba pondered, putting his hand underneath his chin. _'Why would Ise-kun be scared of confessing his feelings with Rias-Buchou?' _Kiba knew that Issei held strong love and high affection for Rias and vice versa. So why would Issei be afraid of telling his feelings to woman who's going to reciprocate those feelings back. _'Wait a minute. Could it possible that the reason why Ise-kun is ignorant with the all the girls' feelings because he was scared all this time, that means...'_

Gasper cocked his head puzzled, becoming concerned on what his senpai was thinking deeply about. Gasper reached his hand out toward Kiba with the intention of tugging his sleeve to grab his attention, but before he could...

"Oh God! How can we be so ignorant!" Kiba smacked himself in the hand when he shouted, making poor Gasper cringed in fear. _'The reason why Ise-kun hasn't respond to the other girls feelings is because he was traumatized by his first girlfriend_ _Raynare.'_ The thought of the fallen angel who toyed with his best friend's emotions brought a foul taste to Kiba's mouth. Kiba still remembered how Raynare tortured Issei both physical and emotionally. It's no wonder Issei was hesitant and scared to move his relationship with the girls. But what bothered Kiba the most that he, the self proclaim best friend of Issei, wasn't able to pick up his fear of intimacy with women.

"K-Kiba senpai?" The blonde bishop stuttered in confusion.

"How could none of us realized this soon," Kiba muttered bitterly as his cellphone began to rang. He took his phone out and answered it. "Hello?"

"Yuuto-kun, it's me Akeno." The caller identify herself at the other hand. "We have a problem. Issei has gone missing."

"Missing? When?" Kiba asked.

"I don't know. Maybe some time after you and Gasper-kun left, but all we know that Issei-kun is no longer on campus." Akeno said worriedly. "Ise-kun isn't answering his cellphone and we searched everywhere for him."

"We?"

"Me, Asia-chan, Koneko-chan, Xenovia, and Irina." Akeno explained. "Everyone felt a bit guilty regarding how we treated Ise-kun and wanted to consult with him properly regarding his relationship with Rias and the rest of us." Kiba could clearly hear the tone of regret within Akeno's tone. Per chance she and the others are aware of Issei's fear of intimacy too. But Kiba needed to be sure though.

"Hey, Akeno-san. Per chance have you ever noticed something wrong with Ise-kun?" Kiba asked.

"You mean his fear of intimacy with other woman?" Akeno asked back with bitter-sweet tone. "So you figured it out too, huh. We couldn't figured why Ise-kun wasn't able to handle relationships with the girls of the club till Asia figured it out." Kiba could hear Akeno's voice starting to shake, like she was going to cry. "God... You know there were times when Ise-kun looks at us, sometimes he look at us with frightened eyes. I didn't understand why at the beginning, but I finally understood. Are we terrible people, Yuuto-kun?"

"..." Kiba didn't know whether to respond yes or no. In retrospect, there are times the girls of the club have put Issei in uncomfortable situations. They teased him, used him, treated him for granted at times. But it was for good intentions, right?

"Let's not think about this right now." Kiba said, changing the subject. "Our priority is to find Ise-kun. Me and Gasper-kun will search the town. You and the others stay where you are in case of Ise-kun coming back."

"Alright." Akeno obliged. "Just be careful and good luck."

"You too." Kiba said before hanging up and turning towards Gasper. "Bad news, Gasper-kun. It seems that Ise-kun has gone missing from the club room and the girls are getting worried. So let's fan out and-"

Kiba didn't have the chance to finish his sentence as the atmosphere throughout the entire town became dark and tense that gravity itself was pulling everything to the ground.

_'Wait this feeling...' _Kiba thought, recognizing something familiar within the atmosphere. _'The last time I felt something like this was when... Ise-kun gone berserk!' _The memories of his best friend going to berserk flashed in Kiba's eyes.

"K-Kiba-senpai!" Gasper cried, trembling in fear as he sees his senior dropped everything in his hands and running in god-like speed in the other direction. Gasper fell on his knees as he see nothing but trails of dust floating in the direction where Kiba has run. "D-Don't leave me..."

_'Why now? Why now of all places?' _Kiba pondered as he rushed of the direction where the tense atmosphere came from. He created a holy-demonic sword in his right hands as he came up by the park. _'Why are you going berserk Ise-kun?'_

Kiba arrived to the park with the fear of slaying his best friend, but before he realized it, someone has already beaten him to it. The menacing and terrifying aura that Kiba detected not too long ago vanished into thin air and Issei was nowhere to be found by the time Kiba stepped into the park. The only thing he was able to notice that's peculiar was nothing more than a puddle of blood.

* * *

_"Can't sleep?" _Issei regain conscious in his luxurious and spacious bedroom, where he noticed three familiar individuals resting on his bed. They were Asia, Rias, and even himself. Issei noticed that Asia was sleeping to her side away from his doppelgänger on his bed while Rias was approaching him. Seeing the scene felt familiar to Issei. Like he went through this before.

_'Ah, that's right.' _Issei remembered. _'This was the night right before the Occult Research Club, The Student Council, and Vali's gang fought against the Evil-God Loki and Fenrir.'_

_"…Akeno had a bright expression. You did something to her right?" _Rias asked innocently.

Issei's doppelgänger became petrified like he was caught in the scene of a crime. _"We didn't have s…sex."_

Issei let out a small light smile as Rias pinched his doppelgänger's cheek and looked at him with half-opened eyes. _"I didn't ask to hear that. …You really didn't do it?"_ She asked concernedly.

_"Y-Yes. I'm still a virgin….." _She stopped pinching the doppelgänger's check after hearing that. Issei saw the relieved look his doppelgänger had as he rubbed the cheek that Rias pinched. He then watched Rias grabbing the doppelgänger's hand that he used to rub his cheek and placed that hand on her breast.

Issei's doppelgänger winced by feeling the smooth, elastic, soft, and enormous sensation of his master's breast. Even Issei, who isn't touching Rias's breast, can feel the sensation in his own hands.

_"U..Umm….Buchou…" _A trail of blood came out from the doppelgänger's nose as he stuttered.

_"….My heart is beating fast right? Of course it is. We are going to fight against a God. I also feel nervous." _Rias muttered gently with her face turning slightly red.

_"I certainly_ can." Issei's doppelgänger replied nervously. "_B-but why are you letting me touch your oppai?"_

_"Ufufu. During the event in the Underworld, I promised you that I will let you touch them, remember? Also I thought that this was the best way to make you relax. –You can't go to sleep because you are nervous, right?"_

She sure knew everything. She remembered the promise she had with Issei and kept it. And she was right. Touching her breast did calm Issei down a lot as well. The doppelgänger looked less tense now that he's touching Rias's breast. _"You will be fighting in the front-line, you have a crucial role, a fight against a God, so you are worried whether you can accomplish that. You can't go to sleep because you are worried about them, right?"_

Again, she was right. Rias was able to read him like a book.

_"…Yes."_ The doppelgänger confessed. _"These roles are scary. It's an honour, but I feel uneasy because I don't know if I can fulfil these roles. I also wonder what would happen to everyone if we fail tomorrow. I feel uneasy due to being nervous and the pressure on me."_

The doppelgänger blurted out the weak thoughts Issei never wanted to say to Rias. Why couldn't Issei confessed these feelings to other people? Was it because he was truly in love with Rias that he was able to confess anything to her? Maybe touching her breast made him tell the truth or something, though Issei did felt safe feeling his master's embrace.

_"It's okay. You can say those things in front of me. –I love Ise, even including those parts about you."_

When Issei heard that, everything around him began to crack. From the ceiling to the floor and everything within in began to crack like glass, even Rias, Asia, and Ise's doppelgänger.

_'Love... What kind of love is she referring to?' _Ise wondered, placing a hand to his chest. With that same hand on his chest, Issei clutched onto his shirt and fell on his knees as the entire room shattered into pieces, turning into nothing more than a white spacious plain.

"Damn it..." Issei wailed, slamming his free hand into the ground. "Is it true? Have I been played all this time by another woman that I fall for? This is how I'm going to be is for the of my life? Being manipulated by other women that I fall for?"

"You lived an unfortunate life." An elderly voice whispered.

"Huh?" Issei heard from the voice from behind and turned around to see scrawny figure dressed in a black cloak.

"Well you are the Sekiryuutei after all. Living the life of misfortune is part of the deal of becoming the Sekiryuutei. " The mysterious figure asked. "Well you should at least consider yourself lucky. Most people would kill to have the kind of relationship that you had with the Gremory devil."

_'Relationship!?' _Issei clutched his hand into fist and began to grind his teeth. "Shut up you sick bastard! You think this is funny! Do you what it feels like to have your heart crushed by the person you cherished the most! By the person you'll do anything for! By the person you're willing to give up everything to save her? Tell me? Did you ever have that kind of person!?"

"...Yes." The cloak figure responded. "I've fallen in love before and was fooled at the end just like you. It's a shame isn't it."

Issei was left speechless by the man's words. He wasn't sure whether to trust the man's word regarding the issue, but he decided to let it go.

"Alright... I'll take your word on it." Issei said sceptically. "So where are we?"

"A special realm," the cloak figure answered. "A special realm where my domain is."

"A special realm, huh." Issei said, looking around the white spacious world. "So why did you bring me here anyway?"

"I brought you here to save you." The cloak figure answered.

"Save me?" Issei raised a brow. "Save me from what."

"Yourself." The cloak figure explained. With a snap of his finger, the white spacious realm transformed itself into the same park that Issei was in not too long ago, where Issei saw another doppelgänger with enraged expression.

"What!? This is..." Issei quickly recognized the scene.

The Boosted Gear flashed on the doppelgänger body as he became to speak: **"**_I, who is about to awaken am the Heavenly Dragon who has stolen the principles of domination from God! I laugh at the "infinite", and I grieve at the "dream"! I shall become the Red Dragon of Domination And I shall sink you to the depths of the crimson-_**Uak!"**

The chant of the doppelgänger got ceased before it was finished by a sudden blade sticking out from the chest. In that instant, the doppelgänger onto his knees as the scale mail armor materialized from doppelgänger body. The doppelgänger looked down at his chest to see the blade before his entire body collapsed on the ground.

"Oh God..." Issei gasped before covering his mouth. "T-That's right... I almost entered Juggernaut Drive. I could've killed everyone in Kuoh Town if I-I wasn't stopped. "

"Well it's a good thing that you were. " The cloak figure said, snapping his finger to return the park back to the white spacious realm. "If you weren't... this world will have been plunged into chaos."

_'Chaos, huh.' _Issei could imagine what happened if he did entered Juggernaut Drive. His whole town would've been blown into smithereens in seconds. Countless innocent lives would've been lost just because Issei couldn't keep his cool. And on top of that it would've happened in the human world. The humans who aren't involved the supernatural world would go hysterical. False accusations would happen between nations and war might break loose with the humans themselves or even the supernatural world Issei lived in.

"So You brought me after that." Issei said to confirm, which the cloak figure nodded. "Okay, you did that. So what now?"

"Well since you no longer have the urge to go berserk, you can go home." A red magic circle appeared right on the cloak's figure ride side.

_'Home? What home?' _After what almost happened, there was no way Issei could face anyone in the Occult Research Club. They, the student council, and even Azazel and Rossweisse have already detected the dark essences of him going into Juggernaut Drive the moment he began the chant. If Issei go back home, he'll have to tell everyone and give them an explanation why he almost gone berserk. Within the tense beating in his heart Issei knew that there was no way he was ready to face any of them, especially Rias.

"...Or you could take an alternative." The mysterious figured offered as a blue magic circle appeared on his left side.

"Alter...native?" Issei asked, walking up to mysterious figure and stopping right in between the two magic circles. Issei looked straight down directly at the blue magic circle. He looked back up at the cloak figure. "What is this alternative?"

"Let's say that the blue magic circle sends you away from the reality you once knew." The cloak figure explained. "You'll escape from the painful truth of your old reality and the blissful ignorance of a new one. Basically it's your ticket away from those who mocked you! Who used you! Who take you for nothing more than granted!"

_'Granted...' _Issei looked down directly at the blue magic circle tensely. _'That's right... Everyone has taken me for granted. From Koneko-chan using me nothing more than a piece of furniture to Xenovia wanting nothing more than my sperm to produce some superpower children to those abusive experiments Azazel put me through for nothing more than for laughs. Maybe it's better off if I don't go back after all...'_

Issei raised his foot, ready to step right on top of the blue magic circle, but stopped his foot from making a direct contact to the ground and pulled it back.

_'...But...' _The image of Asia and Akeno appeared on Issei's mind._'What about Asia and Akeno-san?'_

Within these last six months of being a devil, Issei developed a unique, yet special relationship with the priestess of holy thunder and lightning and the holy maiden. Ise developed a brotherly and sisterly relationship with Asia the moment she moved into his household. Out of everyone that Issei knew, Asia had no personal motivation to gain from Issei except for spending more time with him.

And his relationship with Akeno was also similar to that. At first the relationship was nothing more than a senior student enjoying teasing and flirting with her junior student, but as time went on and their relationship developed Issei began to realized that Akeno depended on more than he thought. She relied on him for emotional support ever since the three alliances were form. She depended on him for courage for the rating game against Sona Sitri and she proclaimed her love for him after he helped reconcile with her father.

Akeno told him that she loved him. So have Asia. Both girls proclaim their love to Issei. Neither of them have personal motivate except to be spoiled by him. What would happened to them if Issei does take the alternative?

_'Yet again...' _Issei narrowed his eyes as the imagines of what happened in the club room not long ago. The way Asia criticized him was like he was some sort of player toying with some poor girl's emotion, which Issei is not. And with Akeno, she prevented Issei from going after Rias and treated him like crap. _'If they did love me, they wouldn't treated like they did.'_

Issei walked right into the blue magic circle.

"I see that you finally made your decision." The cloak figure remarked. "Are you sure you want to do this. Once I snap my finger, there is no going back."

"I'm fine," Issei assured him, letting a single tear fall down his his cheek. "Just get it over already."

"Alright," the cloak figure said, preparing to snapped his fingers. "Oh by the way, I need to explain to you how this alternative works. Since you desire to escape your reality and enter a new one, you can choose the reality you desire to live in. However there is a price you have to pay, depending on the world you have desired."

_'A world where I desire. What kind of world do I want to live in?' _The possibility of what reality Issei desired is endless. He can desire the perfect paradise if he wanted to. He can have reality that he can have all the beautiful women to fall madly in love with him and do whatever he desired, including Rias. But having the thought Rias, or any girl from the Occult Research Club, gave a stress amount of grief into Issei's heart. _'No... I want to live live in a world that I don't have anything to with Buchou... Not with the Occult Research Club... Not with the three alliance... I want to be free and alone!"_

Issei's eyes widen, realizing what reality he desired to live in. He made an unwavering expression on his face as he looked directly at the cloak figure. "I know what reality I want to live in. I want to live in a reality where I never get recruited by Buchou's peerage."

* * *

**Author's Note: Yes! I deeply wanted to write this kind of story for a long time. Now the reality Issei is going to live in is a world where he never got recruited into Rias's peerage. Don't over think this where Issei is going to vanished into "oblivion" because he was never saved by Rias. Consider the scenario as the classic Christmas movie "A Wonderful Life" and in this story consider the DC's comic "Flashpoint" story line too. If you read the "Flashpoint" storyline, you'll understand what's going to happen to in the future of this story. **

**As I said during the author's note prior to the chapter, this story is going to be saga, which I ****devised right around five to six "acts"/"stories" around the saga. The reason why I'm dividing this story into five to six parts is because this story is going to be very long and people like myself, who can get very conflicted reading a very long text books and losing your pages is very irksome. So dividing them into five to six stories of twenty to twenty five chapters fells more in a better sequence to someone like myself. **

**Okay with that said and done now for the infamous chapter preview! **

**Issei has runs off into his new reality to regain his freedom! But consequences of his wish will affect his new reality more than he realized. What new shocking world will Issei face when he goes into his new reality? **

**Next time in A Fragile Heart: Reality Shift**

**Issei: What have I done...**


	3. Reality Shift

**_Author's Note: Before you began reading the next chapter of "A Fragile Heart" I want to say thank to everyone supporting this story :D! The reviews have doubled, I'm getting a lot of positive feedback from everybody and I enjoy the fact that so many people are following this story! Please continue to support this story by continuing to review it and give me some creative criticism, especially since I'm writing this story is third person. I don't own DxD, I hope you all continue to support me._**

* * *

**_Chapter 01 Reality Shift_**

_'A world where he was never saved by that Gremory girl, eh. This is going to become interesting.' _Within the underneath of his cloak, the mysterious man smiled suspiciously. "Are you sure you want to go through with living in that kind of world? The consequences of having that kind of world will personally affect your physical conditions greatly. Once I snapped my finger, there is no going back."

"It's fine." Issei assured him. "I want to get it over with."

"Understood," The cloak figure said, snapping his finger. The blue magic circle let up brightly, ready to send Issei away into his new reality. Right before the magic circle did teleported Issei away, the cloak figure cried out "ah" as if he remembered something important. "That's right. Before you go. I have something important to tell you. Rias Gremory never saw you as useful servant or took you for granted. To her, you were her lover and soul mate. She loved you more than everyone else in this world."

_'Wait! What!?' _Issei's eye widen in shock of the cloak figure's confession. He tried to move out of the magic circle to figure out what the cloak figure was talking about, but couldn't move at all. He was frozen in place.

"But not only Gremory, but the other girls like Asia Argento, Akeno Himejima, Koneko Toujou, Xenovia Quarta, Irina Shidou, and Ravel Phenex. All of them loved you as much as Rias," the cloak figure continued. "None of them took you for granted or used you for personal gain. It's shame though that all those women are too selfish and cruel to figure out the truth about you."

_'The truth?' _Issei pondered. _'What is he talking about? Wait a minute, didn't he said that Buchou actually loved me. Not only her, but Asia, Akeno-san, Koneko-chan, Xenovia, and even Irina and Ravel.'_Despite frozen, a single tear of joy went down Issei's cheek. _'They love me. They really loved me. I could've confessed my love to Buchou a long time ago! Oh God! What have I done!'_

"Oh well. I hope you enjoy your new life." The cloak figure said, waving his hand good bye.

_'Wait a minute! I don't want to go! I want to go back to my world! Please stop!' _Issei wanted to scream his lungs out if he could have. He would've struggled his away out from the magic circle if possible. But he couldn't do either of them. All he could do was hear the shocking truth and watched the cloak figure waving his hand till the light of the magic circle blinded him.

* * *

Issei began to have a dream. His dream began with a robed woman scurried through the streets with a newborn baby girl with golden blonde hair and green eyes crying in her arms. She ran up to the front door of the catholic church, ready to leave her daughter and run off to who know where. As she placed her daughter carefully on the doorstep, the robed mother looked at the peaceful sleeping face of her baby girl. The woman gently stroke her child's cheek, expressing the face of hesitation to leave her baby. The mother shed a single tear before she got up, ready to leave her child, but hesitated the moment she heard newborn cried louder the moment she turned around. The woman turned back and took the baby back in her arms and ran back to the dark streets.

The scenery changed to a Japanese shrine. Over there, Issei saw a young Japanese girl on her knees, staring speechless at a familiar middle-aged, gruff-looking man with black hair, matching beard and a muscular body. Around them are bloody corpses of dead ascetics spread out everywhere. The young Japanese girl's purple eyes got watery as she ran up to the middle-age, gruff-looking man. The middle-aged man crouched down to the girl's height and opened his arms widen opened. The young Japanese girl entered the warm embrace of the middle-aged man and cried into chest, calling him "Dad".

The scene changed again, where Issei sees images of two cats, one black and the other white, sleeping together in the cold winter night of Japan. Both cats slept together in a cardboard box, shivering to death as a pile of snow buried them. Both cats woke up to the sounds of foot steps heading their way. The black cat stuck her head out from the box and noticed a blonde haired shrine maiden with warm gentle glow around her. The shrine maiden knee down and smiled at the sight of the two cats.

The scene changed again for a third time, where Issei imagined a young blonde hair boy, running through snowy forest in the dark night. Chased by men dressed in gas mask and carried rifles, the blonde hair boy ran as fast as he can to get out till he tripped and was about to landed on the snow till he caught by 2-meter old man in his mid eighties, dressed in a priest vestment. The men with rifles and gas mask froze in place in the sight of the eighty year old man, who looked enraged. The old man put his hand out and began to chant out. His body soon began to emit white holy aura as light gathered at his hand and materialized into a blue blade and a golden edge broadsword. The gas masked men panicked and began to opened fire at the priest, but only see the bullets to bounce off from the old man's body. The old priest's broadsword soon gathered aura around his sword and swung out a shockwave of its aura directly at the masked men.

The next scene Issei saw was nothing more than darkness. A darkness that took shape of a black monstrous giant that was rampaging into mansion filled pale nobles. Many nobles ran for their lives, but they were quickly seized in place when the black giant's shining red eyes laid its eyes on them. The darkness from the giant spread into the ground and consumed the pale nobles. Everything soon fade into darkness and the only thing Issei could see were the glowing red eye of the giant, flashing him into beam of red light.

Another scene appeared in a ruined suburban town that looked it recently came out from a fire. Two girls dressed in white robes walked through the streets of the ruined town. One of the girls stopped walking when she noticed a the carcass of a young boy laying down on the ground with a toy action figure of a superhero in his hands. That same girl kneed down and grabbed the toy that the young boy held. She began to wail in remorse as she brought the superhero toy to her chest. The other girl walked up to her companion. She placed her hand on her companion's shoulder and also shed tears along side her.

This was the last scene that Issei saw. This scene there was young, familiar redhead woman alone in the parlour of her home, with her eyes all red. A butler came by, carrying two cases of luggage in his arms. The butler moved his lips as if he was speaking, but Issei couldn't hear what the butler was saying. The redhead girl understood and got up from her seat. She walked out from the parlour and out of the house, where her disappointed parents and brother were waiting for her with a griffon all saddle up to go. Her mother walked up to her with a pair of scissors in her hands. She passed to the daughter, who sadly accepted it. She grabbed long radiant crimson hair up high and with hand in her other hand, the redhead girl snipped off her long crimson hair. Her hair color changed from crimson red into the dirty dark brown the moment she snipped her hair short.

* * *

_"Hey... Wake...Up...!" _Everything was dark to Issei. He could only heard a vague voice, which belong to the last person he wanted to see. _"Wake up already!" _The voice got louder as darkness faded away.

"...Huh?" The darkness that once blinded Issei is now turned into blurry of gray. For a moment Issei couldn't tell what was the gray blob was till his vision cleared up to see the cloudy gray sky. _'The sky... It looks like it's going to rain soon.' _Issei thought to himself tiredly, as if he just woke up.

_"Finally!" _Issei heard the vague voice he heard earlier, but more clear than before from behind. He rolled his head back and saw an upside down Raynare staring at him impatiently with her arms crossed. _"I thought that you'd never will wake up!"_

"Oh Crap!" Issei immediately jumped back up from the ground he lay on and put his guard up as he turned to face Raynare. "W-What are you doing here!"

_"I don't know." _Raynare shrugged. _"Maybe I'm here just to congratulate you on your success."_

"Congratulate? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Issei asked furiously.

_"Just look around." _Raynare proposed. _"You'll figure out what I mean."_

"How is-" Issei cut himself off as he looked around his surrounding. He's back in the park where he was before he gone into juggernaut drive and went into the white dimension of the cloaked figure.

-Or Issei thought it was. Last time he remembered, the grass and flowers was growing on nice good soil and the tree's branches were filled with fall leaves. But now the ground is dried up, with no single trace of a single plant growing, and the trees all burnt and leafless. After realizing the park became nothing more than a complete dried up dead zone, Issei ran out the park to explore the rest of the town.

From the park, Issei ran straight back to Kuoh Academy. In matter of seconds, Issei ran out of breath, and his feet began to feel sore. He stopped to take a quick break and take a chance took around his surroundings. The streets were completely deserted with no signs of any humans or animals nearby. He looked around the houses to see majority of them damaged and nearly burned to the ground.

His stomach began growling and searched for food in all the houses he visited. Most of the food in the kitchens he found were destroyed in the fire, while the others that survived the fire were either burned or too spoiled to eat. He eventually went to a convenient store nearby his house where he found some canned food that did survive the fire, which he also assumed that it wasn't spoiled. He went over the counter and grabbed some bags and grabbed all the canned food he could and headed straight back to his home.

By the time he reached his home, he noticed that his house was the way it was originally, back to its regular two story size and much to his surprise, intact. He rushed in, hoping that his parents are in there per chance, that survived this unexplained horrendous incident that happened in Kuoh Town. Issei dropped his bags at the porch of his home and ran straight inside his home.

"Mom! Dad!" Issei cried out as he entered the living room just to see no one there. Judging from the all the dust gathered all over the floor and the furniture and the cobwebs on every corner of the living room, no one has living in his house for months now.

_'No! They gotta to be here! They just have to!' _Issei ran upstairs, directly to his parent's room. He opened the door just to see only nothing more than his parents bed, the dresser, and drawer, all dusty as if they been untouched for a long time. _'No! I won't allow myself to believe it!' _Issei left his parent's room and checked out the other rooms. There couldn't be no one in every room.

"Damn it... Where are they?" Issei asked as he entered his room and lay on his bed.

l"Raynare... W-What happened?" Issei asked, turning back at Raynare. "How did Kuoh Town end up like this? Why is my house the only one intact? Did you have something to do with this?"

Raynare's lips curved into a satisfied smirk. _"Oh Ise-kun, as much I would gladly take credit for taking away your beloved town, I regrettably have to inform you that all of this wasn't my doing. Instead it was all of yours."_

"Mine?" The memories of meeting the mysterious figure flashed into Issei's mind. He remembered the offer he made with the cloak figure gave him and remembered the world he desired. But what struck him the most was none other than what the cloak figure telling him about how Rias and the other girls genuinely loving him.

"Oh God!" Issei said, covering his face with his hands. "What have I done!"

_"You fucked up, that's_ _what." _Raynare chided coldly. _"You should've known this was some sort of trap. That cloaked figure was shady from the start, and yet you allowed yourself to fall into his hands!"_

She was right. Issei couldn't deny it. The cloaked figure was suspicious from the moment he saw him. He should have known better, but he didn't. He wasn't thinking straight. He was demented and weak. In his state, he could've been easily manipulated. He wouldn't have been liked like if Raynare didn't-then it hit him. He looked Raynare with his widen in realization.

"You! You have something to do with this!" Issei accused loudly. He rushed over to the Raynare, cornering her into the door. "You planned this all the along! Didn't you!? You and that cloaked figure were in cahoots to mess with me!"

Despite the situation she was in, Raynare was unfazed and nonchalant, like she wasn't afraid of Issei. Her smirk changed to a solemn frown as she narrowed her eyes. _"You're right. It was too coincidental for me to show up and mess up with your mind right before that cloaked man appeared. It was flawless and the timing couldn't be any better, but there is one problem. I have never met that cloaked man in my life and today was the first time I've ever saw him."_

Hearing that made Issei more distraught than before. He backed away from Raynare, wondering either or not she's was lying or not. Issei could easily told himself that Raynare was lying, but she knew her long enough to tell whether or not she was liar or not. If she was telling the truth then...

_'How in the world is she still here?' _Issei became terrified from the inside. He was too afraid to show his emotion to Raynare, who still looking at him with her solemn expression. _'This world was altered right? Everyone's fate must have changed because I should have remained dead, even Raynare's. So why does it appear that she from the original reality that I came from!?'_

_"You know it's unhealthy for your head if you think too much." _Issei cringed by the sound of Raynare's voice. Without Issei realizing it, Raynare stood right in front of him, with their faces only inches away from one another. Raynare expressed her smug looked again, but appearing more vile than ever. _"Is something bothering you per chance? Are you confused why someone like myself, who's from your original reality is right here in front of you with my original memories intact?"_

Issei felt a freezing chill running down his spine.

"W-What are you?" Issei asked, stuttering to get his words out.

_"Ara, I've been dying for you to finally asked me that." _Raynare wrapped her arms around Issei's neck as she leaned her lips closer's to Issei's ears._ "Now it's the time to finally tell you my beloved Ise-kun. To tell you the truth, I'm none other than-"_

"Is there anyone here?"

Issei shuddered fretfully from hearing the new voice coming from downstairs. Hearing the voice literately gave a wake up call like it was as if he just snapped out from a long trance or waking up from a bad nightmare. Raynare was no longer in his room and Issei was all alone with his body all sweaty and his heart was beating rapidly like never before.

_'W-What... What just happened?' _Issei wondered, looking around his room. _"Raynare was here just a second ago, but now...'_

"I mean you no harm! So please come out!" The voice from downstairs pleaded.

Issei shook his head, trying to clear his mind from Raynare and headed out from his room. He rushed downstairs and towards the living room, where he noticed the back of a long haired person.

The person turned around to reveal a beautiful woman with long black hair dressed in rag clothes, looking completely filthy. She turned around, she looked relieved to see Issei and ran up to him.

"Oh thank god!" She cried, clinging on Issei and crying onto his chest. "I thought I would never anyone who would come here since the war started!"

_'War?' _Issei thought. The first thing that came into his mind was none other than Kokabiel, the fallen angel who tried to create the war between the church, the Grigori, and the devils. He tried to instigate the war between the three factions by stealing the Excalibur fragments from the church and brought them to the Kuoh Town, where it was under the territory of Rias and Sona, siblings of the current Maous.

_'Wait a minute, don't tell me that...' _Issei pulled the girl from his chest. "You said there was a war right? Please tell me what exactly just happened it."

"Huh? You don't know?" the girl asked puzzled, questioning either or not Issei was lying.

"No," Issei assured her. "L-Let's just say that I just woke up from a long coma."

"_*Growl*_" Both Issei and the ragged girl's stomach growled in unison. Both of them blushed in embarrassment and stayed in silence till the girl broke it by giggling. Issei then broke into laughter as well.

"Ah sorry." both of them said in unison.

"Sorry, I haven't eaten all day." Issei said, scratching the back of my head.

"Yeah, I haven't eaten for days." The girl informed him innocently.

"Ah don't worry," Issei said, heading to the front door to retrieve the bag of can food he left at the porch. "I've brought some food from-" Issei quickly cut himself off as he felt something was very wrong.

_'W-What the-?' _There was a loud ringing in Issei's head. The sense of apprehension came into Issei's mind as he thought back to what the girl just said to him.

_"Yeah, I haven't eaten for days." _How could that be? The kitchens in the houses Issei has visited looked untouched. In every kitchen he checked, the food was untouched and spoiled. And the convenient store he visited by was filled can food that nobody laid hands on. So why did she said that she haven't for days then.

"What's wrong?" the girl asked. The way she spoke was sweet, but Issei could easily tell there was a hint of spiteful in her tone. **"Aren't we going to eat!?"**

Issei's back shuddered, too scared to looked back now as heard disturbing noises from behind. The ringing in Issei's head started send messages to Issei's body to run. Inadvertently, Issei's body moved on its own and ran out of the house like his life depended on it.

**"Hey... Where are you going!?" **From behind, Issei could hear the sound of a punch that went through the walls of his house. **"Wait for me!"**

Issei glance back to see a hand out tearing through the wall of his house. The hand pulled it self in and monstrous creature came out. The creature took form of a naked black hair woman with voluptuous figure but her lower body was gigantic and beastly with four legs, each having sharp claws, and a snake as a tail. Her overall appearance was reminiscent to that of a Centaur. Her face changed with bearing piranha-like teeth, pointed ears, and black sclera in place of the usual white.

_'My god! She looks a lot like Viser!' _The appearance of the black haired girl did look a lot of Viser. The only difference between the two is that Viser had white hair and the one he's being chased by has her front legs featuring humanoid hands with red claws (the same color as her sharp nails) and her stomach featuring a gap with teeth, which appeared to be used to devour her prey.

**"Here comes Visor!" **The monstrous girl, now going by deceased stray's devil's name, leaped high into the air. She jumped so high that she leaped over Issei and landed a few feet away in front of him.

"Shit!" The ground shook violently when Visor landed, causing Issei to stumble back and fell head first into the pavement of the road. He placed his hands on the back of his head as he curried himself into ball. _'God! It hurts! Why does it hurt some much?'_

_"You monster!" _Visor curled her fingers together into a fist and slammed her fist straight at Issei. Issei reacted right away and crawled back to dodge her punch, which hit straight to the ground. **"How dare you abandon a poor, starving, lonely girl! And they called me a monster!"**

_'I can't take this anymore!' _Issei stood up and leaped back to make some distance between him and Visor. _'I need to end this quickly before I become her lunch!' _Issei position himself into his battle stance, ready to summon his Sacred Gear. _'Here goes nothing!'_

"Come forth! Boosted Gear!" With his left hand raised up high, posing like a superhero, Issei chant out his Boosted Gear. A few seconds passed and nothing happened. Usually whenever Issei called out his Sacred Gear, a light appeared on his entire forearm and his red dragon claw like gauntlet appeared. But this time it didn't show up. _'What the hell? Why isn't the Boosted Gear coming out!?'_

_"Are you sure you want to go through want to live in that kind of world? The consequences of having that kind of world will personally affect your physical conditions greatly. Once I snapped my finger, there is no going back."_

The words of the cloak figure's echoed in Issei's mind. Those were the words that the cloak figure stole him directly after Issei told him what world he desired. If the world Issei desired where he wasn't a reincarnated by Rias, then...

Issei put his left hand down and place it and his right hand all over his body. All of the color faded from his face as he felt nothing more than scrawny arms and bland, out of shape body. Issei no longer possesses a muscular, in-shape body that he took six months to obtain.

Then it hit him. The reason why he was out of breath so quickly. Or why his legs were so sore. It also explained how much pain the back of his head. It was because he was completely human again. It must been what the cloaked figure meant by when he said that the reality he was entering was going to affect his physical condition.

_'W-Wait a second...! If I lived in a world where I don't get reincarnated into a Devil, then...' _Issei looked down at his left hand, where the Boosted Gear usually materialized at. _'Then... could it mean that I'm no longer the Sekiryuutei too?'_

The idea of him no longer possessing the Boosted Gear and being the Sekiryuutei is plausible. If Issei never got reincarnated by Rias, he would have been left for dead and the Boosted Gear would have gone to its next host. That would have been the case if Issei did have died, but what about him now? Does he no longer have his mid-class Longinus or is he just too weak to summon it?

**"Gwhahaha!" **Viser laughed scornfully. **"You really had me going for a moment there. I really did thought you had a sacred gear for a moment there! But you're just an ordinary human like the rest of the corpses I just ate!"**

_'Corpses? Ate? Was she the reason why this town is a complete ghost town?' _Issei wondered. _'Did this Viser eat everyone?'_

_"Now then! Let me feast on your flesh and bones!" _Viser placed her hands on he breasts and began to rubbed them without any shame. Tiny magic circles appeared directly at the nipples as began to be squirted out from them. The acid spread around Issei, cornering with no room to escape from Viser.

_'Shit!' _Issei thought, unsure to do. The gap is too much for Issei to jumped over. He can face off Viser head on either. _'Am I really going to die here?'_

**"Thanks for the meal!" **Viser opened her stomach's mouth and summoned a spear on each hand. She leaped forward, ready to dine on her scrawny meal, till a spear of light appeared out of nowhere and pierce right through Riser's head. **"Guahh!" **Viser screeched out as she slowly dissolved into dust.

Issei, who watched the whole thing unfolded, opened his jaw, completely daze and petrified. He wasn't sure what just happened. The first thing Issei did was turned to the direction where the spear of light came from. He looked up in the sky and became stupefied at the sight in front of them.

"No way..." Issei muttered, unsure if he fully process of what he's currently seeing. In the sky, Issei watched a man dressed in red dragon-like armor with an uncanny appearance of the Boosted Gear's scale mail, descending into the ground. When the man with scale mail armor landed on the ground disappeared, most of the armor disappeared, except for a gauntlet on the man's left forearm.

The man under the red armor had the appearance of a young Irish man with messy black hair and beautiful emerald green eyes. The Irish man wore long gray sleeved shirt with an open leather jacket on top, black jeans with a utility belt strapped around his waist, and tall brown boots that came all the way to his knees.

"Greetings," the Irish man said in a well, peaceful manner. "I mean you no harm. My name is Lleu Llaw Gyffes, the descendant of the legendary Celtic God Lugh and I'm also this generation's Red Dragon Emperor."

* * *

**_Hello everybody! I hope you enjoyed this month's chapter of "A Fragile Heart" I originally was going to post this sooner but I had a bit of the problem of wording out the dream sequences, especially about the two cats and eventually I got lazy and didn't feel like writing Fan-Fics for a while. I'll try to update sooner before July, where I'm going out of the country for a while so I won't be able to work on the series for a while. _**

**_So tell me everyone, did any of you suspected that Lleu from Red Savior's Advent and Awakening of the Red Saviors was going to make an appearance in this story? Of course not! If you read "A New Opportunity, you'll see a cameo of Lleu when Father Time showed Issei a reality where he never existed and this world, where Issei never got recruited into Rias's peerage, the Boosted Gear has been passed down from Issei to Lleu, who know the strongest Sekiryuutei that ever existed. Okay I know how many of people are going to react. If Lleu has the Boosted Gear, is Issei powerless? Here what I'm going to say, Issei still has his Boosted Gear from his "reality" but he's completely depowered since he wasn't recruited by Rias at all. Issei is too weak to even summon it. The reason why I'm saying this is because in the next arc, Issei will already be aware of his Boosted Gear and summon it. The reveal is going to be anti-climate, but his subspecies Balance Breaker isn't. _**

**_Also during the the dream sequences, I was originally going to published them in the next chapter, but I felt that with everyone making very dark assumptions regarding the fates of everyone, I felt like I should show you a glimpse of what has happened to their past in this alter reality. In the next two chapters, which is the end of the first arc will explain why did everyone have this kind of past and post this arc we will see what are their doing now. _**

**_Now for the preview of the next chapter: _**

**_After being saved by Lleu, this reality's Sekiryuutei, Issei has multiple questions regarding his Kuoh Town and the "war" the alternate Viser spoke about, but with the answers Lleu is ready to respond, can Issei handle the guilt regarding the mayhem he has created? _**

**_Next time in A Fragile Heart: Grim Reality_**

**_Lleu: Do youu really have no idea what's really going on the world? _**


	4. Grimm Truth Pt 01

**Well sorry that I haven't update the month before, but I was busy with my vacation to Central America with my family and focused on Devil of the Apocalypse. Please read, review, comment, follow, and favorite please~ Enjoy.**

* * *

Lugh. He's known as the Irish identity that represented in the Celtic Mythology. Known as a hero and high king, Lugh earned his reputation by slaying his dictator of grandfather, the Evil-God Balor through skills and techniques alone. This made Lugh into the most strongest Gods not only in Celtic Mythology, but the whole world. Issei should know. He has researched up not only Lugh, but the rest of the other top ten strongest beings in the whole world.

Ever since his encounter with Ophis and Fenrir, Issei began to research on the rest of the other deities who were part of the top ten strongest beings in the world. With the inclusion of Ophis, Fenrir, and Lugh, the others were Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, and Sakra of the Hindu mythology, Thor of Norse mythology, Typhon and Hades of Greek mythology, and Aten of Egyptian mythology.

"So would you mind telling me what in the world you were doing here in this ghost town?"

It was now nightfall. The heavy rain ended an hour after the death this reality's Viser and the dark sky became cloudless with multiple bright white stars and a full moon bringing out as a source of light. Issei stared down at his destroyed house with deprive and lifeless eyes, remembering the events that just unfold not so long ago. Lleu stood behind Issei, observing him passively for the last few hours. So far Issei hasn't say a single word after Lleu saved him, not even a "Thank You." After realizing that silence wasn't going to go nowhere, Lleu decided to break it by trying to get a conversation going.

"This place... Was my home." Issei answered without looking back. "But now it's gone. Everything I ever treasured is gone. And It's all my fault."

"Huh?" Lleu blinked in surprised. "What are you saying? You're actually a resident from this town? That can't be. Everyone from this town died when the war began."

_'The war?' _Issei remembered Viser saying something about war before she tried to devour him. So the destruction of Kuoh Town was the start of the war in this reality.

"Hey, Lleu was it? Can I ask you something?" Issei asked, still not taking his eyes off his destroyed home. "Can you explain to me about everything going on into his war?"

"Huh? You're kidding right? You don't know what has happening this world?" Lleu asked, walking up to Issei. Lleu then placed his hand on Issei's shoulder, turning him over to see look in his face. Lleu was taken back, shock to see devistated and lifeless eyes Issei had on. From staring into those eyes, Lleu knew that Issei wasn't lying about not being a resident of this town. And from those eyes Lleu could tell that Issei did have no idea what's going with the world they lived in. "Alright. Where do you want me to begin with."

* * *

"How long have we been in war?"

"It's around late spring, early summer at the latest. But to be frank, this world has been in state of war long before we were even born."

After accepting Issei's request regarding the state of this world, the boys decided to camp out. The stood out on a campfire within nearby Issei's old home. Issei was able to salvage the can foods from his destroyed house and cooked up a batch of bake beans. Issei offered some to Lleu, but he quickly refused. Issei took a taste from the beans and turned out to be terrible. Lleu summoned some of his rations via magic circle. and shared some with Issei around the campfire.

"So a cold war then?" Issei asked. He remembered how hostile the angels, the fallen angels, and devils were to one another before the alliance was formed. Each side were dying to provoke one another to start the second Great War. Not only the three biblical factions were hostile to another, all factions were like that till the alliance as formed.

"You can say that." Lleu shrugged. "Every faction was hostile to one another and did nothing but talk till they showed up."

"They?" Ise cocked his head. "Who's they?"

Lleu took in a deep breath before continuing in a deep solemn tone. "They're known as the Armilus. They're the one responsible for causing the war and the destruction of this town."

_'Armilus?' _Something didn't felt right to Issei. In heard anything about this "Armilus" group before in his world, so why were they the one responsible for the war and the destruction of his hometown rather than Kokabiel or even the Khaos Brigade. Could it be possible that the man in the black hood had something to do with this?

"They're a known as a terrorist organization consist of well-known entities of very mythology that is known to be the representation of evil." Lleu continued. "That includes evil god identities, the Grigori, and the current devil society."

"Wait what?" Issei couldn't believe it. The Grigori and the current devil society are part of this organization. He knew the head leaders of both society personally. He couldn't understand why pacifist like Azazel or the current Maous would agree to join such terrorist organization against the world. "Why would Azazel and people like Sirzechs Lucifer be want to join a terrorist group."

"Azazel?" Lleu became shock. "You really don't know do you? I'm not sure about this Sirzechs person, but Azazel has been overthrown by the Grigori. To be franked, many cardinals have been overthrown by their positions in coup d'etat lead by Kokiabel."

_'Kokiabel?' _The so called powerful fallen angel recorded in the Bible that was easily by Vali of all people overthrow an organization lead by strong warriors like Azazel and Baraqiel? How could Kokiabel pulled it off. Did he have help because he's part of the Armilus?

"If Kokiabel is currently running the Grigori, who's running the devil society?"

"That would be the descendants of the original Maous." Lleu explained, much to Issei's dismay.

_'Descendants!?' _The imagines of Shalba and Katerea appeared in Issei's mind. _'The Old Maou Faction is in charge of the underworld instead of Sirzechs and the others?'_

Nothing was making sense to Issei. Not only the Kokiabel took over the Grigori, but also Old Maou Faction is in charge of the devil society too. How could Kokiabel and the Old Maou Faction took power just because Issei no long part of Rias's peerage?

"Wasn't there a civil war within the devil society?" Issei brought up.

"Yeah. There were records that showed that there was a resistance against the current devil society, but they lost due to the aid of the Armilus." Lleu confessed. "The same thing went for Kokiabel as well. It seemed that those arrogant bastards were able to suck up their pride and decided to cooperate to destroy every realm in very dimension in existence."

Lleu's right. Both Kokiabel and the Old Satan Faction sucked up their prides and got helped from other factions. But how? None of them seemed eager to aid one another, though the Old Satan Faction did plead for help from Ophis and the Khaos Brigade. Then a thought to Issei.

"Lleu, quick question. Is Loki part of this organization."

"Loki? Yeah, he's one of the main cardinals of the organizations."

"And Valper Galilei?"

"Yeah. He's the head scientist in one of their divisions."

"How about Diodora Astaroth? Or someone named Raynare per chance?"

"Never heard of them." The two entered into deep silence after that. Lleu observed Issei as he takes in the information he just heard and sighed.

_'So? What do you think of him?' _Lleu thought, looking down at his left arm.

**_"He's uncanny. That's for sure." _**The voice said telepathically in Lleu's mind. _**'**__**His aura isn't those of this world, yet at the same time he has signature similar to mine."**_

Lleu looked up to Issei, who now staring off into the campfire. _'You're kidding. There's only one Sekiryuutei and one Boosted Gear in the world. Unless you have a relative that God of the Bible sealed them into a Sacred Gear, there shouldn't anyone with your dragon signature.'_

_**"Well I did have a brother, but he was slayed by that knight who slept with king's Arthur's wife. But that's not the case. His signature is identical to mine and no one else."**_

_'Could it be possible that he's the descendants to one of predecessors?' _Lleu asked.

_**"No. I never had a Japanese partner before. Lleu, it's not that I trust this human, but I feel like you need to use your eyes and the Fragarach to make sure this person said who he really is."**_

Lleu bit his lower lip. He wasn't sure he wanted to used his powers to interrogate a civilian. But at the same time, Issei didn't felt like he wasn't any civilian, especially since Lleu could tell that Issei wasn't lying about being a resident of Kuoh Town. And there was that incident that happened that caused Lleu to come into this ghost town, but before he could even think back to that, Issei speak up.

"If the Armilus are ones responsible for this war, who exactly are they fighting?"

"Oh? Who's that?" Issei asked.

"They're known as the Nephilim."

"Nephilim?" Issei tilted his head.

"Nephilim, the "Son of Gods." Lleu said, translating the name of the organization. "It's an organization created by Azazel."

"Azazel? But didn't you say that-"

"I said he was overthrown, not killed." Lleu clarified, interrupting Issei. "After being overthrown by the Kokiabel, Azazel and his group decided to form an organization with the devils that have been exiled themselves from their society. And when the war broke out, guess who else joined the Nephilim?"

"The church?"

"Yup." Lleu nodded. "Everyone. They knew they had no chance against the Armilus and decided to join the Nephilim after being convinced that Azazel and the devil defectors are weren't as corrupted and arrogant as they use to be. Eventually other factions decided to join the organization to band in numbers against the Armilus. So technical the war is basically between the Armilus of Evil against the Nephilim of Good."

Issei was left speechless. Even without him, the alliance was stilled formed. He felt relieved, a great burden in his heart has be lifted. Not all hope is lost in this world. Not only the three alliances together again, but more factions that weren't from alliance of his world. This world can be saved, but before can expressed how happy he was felt something disturbing nearby.

Lleu also felt it too. Both men got up form their seats as the fire quickly died out from a cold strong breeze. Both men held their breathe as a light blue magic circle that Issei seen before appeared.

"Ufufufufu... Greeting Sekiryuutei-chin. What do you think of your new home?" The voice was definitely familiar to Issei, but in a brighter and cheerful mood. And he knew that voice was referring to him and not Lleu. The magic circle bright up and the man in the cloak appeared.

"Wait you're...!?" Lleu widen his eyes, seemingly to recognize who the man in the hood is. But before he can identity him, the man in the hood fired a beam of demonic energy directly at him by the cloak figure. Lleu quickly summoned his Scale Mail and a magic circle to shield against the attack, but the demonic energy easily penetrated through both magic circle and Lleu's armor.

"Lleu!" Issei rushed to Lleu, who's knocked down battered and injured on the ground.

"Poor faker. He never stood a chance against me." The cloak figure laughed. He put his hand on his hoodie and put down. Issei widen as he sees the face of the man under the hoodie. He was around his mid-forties long messy silver hair and light blues. By seeing that man's face, he had uncanny appearance of an older Vali. "Hello Sekiryuutei-chin. Sorry that I haven't introduced myself before, but since you fell into my deliberate plan, I think its time for me to introduced myself. My name is Rizevim Livan Lucifer. I'm the biological son of Lucifer and the grandfather of Vali Lucifer, the Hakuryuukou of your generation. Oh have I told you that I'm the leader of the Armilus too?"

* * *

_**Sorry this chapter isn't as long as I hope, but I'm leaving the country this week and I wanted to finish this arc before I go. So what do you think? I decided to introduced Rizevim into this story as the main antagonist of the first half of the series and leader of the Armilus, the new version of the Khaos Brigade. Speaking of it, I can't wait for the next volume of DxD, coming the 18th of the month. That volume is going to be a turn over to the canonical dxd series. Also what did you think? Did you really think I was going to allow this war is going between the three biblical factions and not include the other mythologies. I known I did say that this story is going to incorporate parts of DC's Flashpoint comic, but I was referring to how fate of the original heroes were altered, which happened in the chapter before, but there are more altered futures and personalities of the original canonical characters to be introduced.**_

_**Now time for the preview of the next chapter:**_

_**Issei now confronts Rizevim regarding his purpose into sending him into a new reality, but when Issei learns Rizevim's true intentions and how he was able to alternate reality, Issei learns that his chances going back to his world are slimmer as Rizevim reveals his master plan for Issei, the Armilus, and the new reality.**_

_**Next time in the final chapter of the first arc of A Fragile Heart: The Grim Truth Pt 02**_

_**Rizevim: You maybe unique and special in this universe, but compare to the multiverse, you're nothing more than speck of dust. **_


	5. Grimm Truth Pt 02

**Before anyone of you read this chapter. I first want to give thanks to the following who contribute to this chapter: ****WarriorMan199456, blueprintLV, SSJ3 Kyuubi Gohan, LordxSesshomaru, and everyone who actually does do DxD fanfic.**

* * *

**_Grimm Truth Pt 02_**

_Universe-9446965_

_Fifteen Years Ago..._

_"Ah... Ha..." In the depth parts of Agreas, Rizevim struggled his way to the power chamber. His clothes were badly tattered and burned. With very part of his body sore and bleeding from both the inside and out, and too tired to concentrate to use his demonic energy, Rizevim realized that he only had a few moment before he leave the world of the living. Sensing that his body doesn't have much time left before failing him, Rizevim leaned on the wall beside and thought back to the last few months that has happened to him._

_He remembered that everything that happened to him fall into its place perfectly. He thought that he had everything perfectly even thought he fought a worthy, yet nuisance, foe like the Sekiryuutei and his ragtag of brats. When Rizevim learned of the existence of the other world and Trihexa, he discovered that the essentials were in the possession of some snot noise brat and observed him for some time. The Sekiryuutei of this generation was indeed different from all the Sekiryuuteis from the past generations. From observing his behavior and interaction with others, Rizevim came to peculiar assumption that the Sekiryuutei had lived this life before._

_But he soon laughed it off. It was nearly impossible for him to come up with that assumption. Time travel is impossible, even for the the super devil like him or even powerful beings in the top ten. But if it were possible, it would explained some of the actions like the Sekiryuutei encountering the might Dragon King Ophis and making strong connection to Kyoto at a very young age, or that he knew the night of the Holy Sword Project massacre or discovering the user of the Sephiroth Graal._

_There was also the fact he became calculative and familiar with the opponents he faced against even though it was his first encounter with them like Kokiabel of the Grigori, Loki from the Norse mythology, the core members of the Khaos Brigade. And what's more the Sekiryuutei was able to claimed and tame cursed weapons like the cursed Demonic Sword Arondight and able to claim the almighty Kusanagi from the Evil Dragon Yamata-no-Orochi, who wasn't as evil as he seemed._

_But that didn't frightened Rizevim one bit. He was the son of the original Lucifer and the abnormal super devil, a title which he should share alone since he is a "true" Maou compare his fellow Super-Devils Sirzechs and Ajuka. He was able to out think the Sekiryuutei by able stealing half of Ophis's power and was able to get his hands on the Sephiroth Graal by taking the Dhampirs with Sacred Gears hostage and using them as bargaining chip to claim the grail._

_With his plans to awaken Trihexa starting out strong and successful, he didn't believe he had to worry. With the powers he stole from Ophis, he was able to make a doppelganger of the original and with the Sephiroth Graal, he was able to modified and enhanced anybody in his organization, the Qlippoth. He also had an army of deadly Evil Dragons by his side. With the odds by his side, he should have became victorious in the end, but he couldn't._

_There were signs that Rizevim ignored. It happened after his first encounter with the Sekiryuutei back in the Vampire territory. When Rizevim decided a frontal assault on village, Sekiryuutei was able to stand toe to toe with his right hand man Elucid Lucifuge, the young brother of Sirzechs's queen and wife, Grayifa Lucifuge, and awakened a special abilities that belong to the two Heavenly Dragons before they are sealed into their Sacred Gears and easily took him down during their second encounter in conquering of Agraes._

_Next was there second encounter in heaven when Rizevim claimed the fruits of knowledge and life. Rizevim, who had the power to cancel the power of Sacred Gears, became dumbfounded when the Sekiryuutei secretly had the power to cancel his power with the help of the Ring of Dispel and his new Sacred Gear __ability called "Penetrate" to break through his defensive. Then the last sign that Rizevim should have known would lead to his demise was the lost of Walburga, leader of the rogue magician's faction Hexennacht and the possess of the Longinus Incinerate Anthem, and lost of all of the Evil Dragons, which they were easily sealed off by the Sekiryuutei's allies._

_With all of signs that were pointing out to the obvious, Rizevim should have stopped and lay low for a bit and take his time to awakened Trihexa, but with all the success he had obtaining his necessities like the Sephiroth Graal, Argeas, and the fruit of knowledge and life, he felt that some sacrifices were necessary if he was going to defeat the Great Red and conquer the new world._

_He remembered during the events in the vampire territory that he wasn't threatened by the Sekiryuutei since he didn't had the power to overcome his Sacred Gear Canceler and in Agreas, he remembered the lost of Elucid, who he felt that the only reason why he lost was because he was still obsessed with his older sister Grayifa rather than the task on hand. And in heaven, Rizevim shook off the warning sign since he was brutally attacked by the filthy dragon Fafnir before fight the Sekiryuutei, who just recently discovered his "Penetrate" ability._

_But ever since his encounter in Heaven, Rizevim wasn't the same. He experienced a feeling he never felt before in his life._

_Fear._

_The emotion of fear devoured him every night as he was brutally killed by the same golden dragon that assaulted him in Heaven. That drove him to the point where not only lost a lot of sleep, but move his plans a head of time than it supposed to, which probably brought his downfall, especially since he went and kidnapped the Sekiryuutei's parents and reveal his true identity to them._

_But that doesn't matter anymore. The plan to discourage the Sekiryuutei by using his parents as hostages and making them hate their son ended up backfiring on him and ended up giving him a even greater power boost, which lead Rizevim to the be in his current state._

_"S-Shit..." Rizevim coughed out blood as his conscious was slowly fading. He realized that he doesn't have much time left. In a matter of seconds he'll die. At least he'll get the last laugh since Trihexa will awaken the moment he heart stop beating. Trihexa will be the being that brings everything into extinction. Even if he dies, he'll still win. It was enough for to die with a grin of his face. Rizevim slowly closed his eyes, ready to accept his death. But without realizing what's going around him, a mysterious teleportation circle appeared underneath him, teleporting him away from Agraes, and from his universe._

* * *

"L-Lucifer? Y-You're the same of Vali?" Issei was completely stupefied. With everything that happened has happened to him and with so many questions and answers that didn't had time to sink in, and with day not even over yet, Issei didn't know how to properly react or respond.

"What's wrong Sekiryuutei-chin? Don't you recognized me?" Rizevim asked sarcastically as approached Issei and Lleu, who still knock down on the ground. "Oh that's right. This is your first encounter with me. If I haven't interfered with this universe's timeline, you would have meet the me of this world after the fallout of the Underworld's Monster Crisis. But that's only if the Monster Crisis actually occurred."

_'Universe? Timeline? Monster Crisis? What exactly is he talking about?' _Issei wondered as he held the unconscious and injured Lleu close to him.

"So what's on your mind Sekiryuutei-chin? Is your pea sized brain not able to comprehend a single word I say? Or are you confused on how I, a stranger you never met, know you very well? Or do you want know why I, the grandfather of the current Hakuryuukou, had made your life for the worse or how I was able to this in the first place? These were mostly what you from the other worlds think of after they've encounter me after I altered their universe's reality."

Again he mention the word "Universe." Not only he mentioned words like "other universes", but he also mentioned other stuff like timelines and meeting with other Issei from the other universes. The only things Issei could properly think of what this Rizevim person is was either he was some sort of time traveler or someone who wasn't from his universe.

"So figured it out eh?" Rizevim said like he was reading Issei's mind. "So let me guess. You either come to the conclusion that I'm either a time traveler or someone from a different universe right?" By seeing Issei's body cringed and his expression turning stiff, Rizevim knew very he just the hit the jackpot. "Now you're wondering what my motivate right? Am I here for personal reasons like avenging my grandson, who you may or may not defeat in my universe. You might think that, but no. I could care less about the feud between the two of you."

"Wait! If you're not here to avenge your grandson, then why are you here?" Issei asked, now finally speaking up. "Why are you targeting me and not the Issei from your world? And how...! How the hell did bring me into this new reality! Did you just send me into an alternate universe?"

Rizevim looked confused and off guarded by the fierce look in Issei had, but then smiled in delight. "Now, now hold Sekiryuutei-chin. If you hold on a sec, your grandpa Rizevim will answer everything to heart contends."

_'Hold on a sec?' _For a second Issei thought Rizevim was stalling for time or something till a large magic circle appeared underneath him and Lleu and a smaller one appeared underneath Rizevim.

_Snap!_

Rizevim snapped his fingers and the surrounding of the ruined Kuoh Town began to distort and diminished into the familiar white realm Issei was in after he almost went berserk.

"Before I even give you the answers you're seeking for, let me begin by telling you a bit about myself." Rizevim said as he snapped his fingers again. "As I told you before, I'm the direct offspring of the original Lucifer and the grandfather of your rival however there something you're not going to learn about me till the future of your reality."

The white space turned into an western European settlement covered in fog. The pale like villagers of the settlement were under attack by horde of dragons soaring down and destroying everything in sight. Issei watched in horror as Rizevim felt nostalgic.

"In the near future the Khaos Brigade will suffer through the lost of numbers and lost of their leader Ophis." Rizevim continued as he observed the dragons began to slaughtered many of the villagers. "Through the help of my personal connections I took control of the Khaos Brigade and rebuild it into my imagine."

Issei noticed one of the dragons heading straight towards some of the children on the settlement. One of the children tripped and sprained his ankle. One of the dragon smirked at the injured child and soared straight towards him for the kill. Even though it was nothing more than an illusion created by Rizevim, Issei desperately wanted to save that defenseless child. But before he could even move, a flash of crimson swooped up the kid before the dragon could lay his claws on him.

Issei's eyes tailed the flash of crimson till it stopped into a safe distance away from the chaos. The flash of crimson turned out to be someone dressed crimson colored Boosted Gear scale mail. When Rizevim noticed the crimson colored Scale Mail, his expression as soured as he made his into a fist and shook it violently.

"I thought I had everything in control when I took over the Khaos Brigade, but I didn't took account for one thing." The crimson colored Sekiryuutei put the child down and removed his mask off to show someone that looked identical to Issei. "And it was you!"After assuring that the kid was alright, the crimson colored scale mail Issei put on his dragon helmet on and dashed back into the battlefield.

The space of the surroundings began to distort again and the magic circles brought both Rizevim and the two Sekiryuuteis back to the white realm. Issei looked back at the Rizevim, who's body is shaking in rage and trying to keep a cool smile. Rizevim took a step forward and disappeared on sight. Before Issei could even see it, Rizevim grabbed him on the throat and pulled him up in the ground.

"At first I didn't took you as a threat." Rizevim hissed, reminiscing his time in his original universe. "Due to our status quo at the time, I took you for nothing more than annoying little brat playing hero. You couldn't stand a chance with a super devil like me at first, but in time that all changed."

Rizevim released his hold on Issei's throat and backed away. Issei caught his breath while looking back at the lifeless expressed in Rizevim's eyes and depressed look he had on him. "Soon enough I lost everything. My men were either captured or defected to the other side. Hell some of them were killed in combat. Soon enough my own downfall came after and I soon enough faced with death itself till I stumble upon here."

Rivezim snapped his fingers for a third time and the white space turned into the surroundings of the ruins of an ancient temple. "I don't remembered how I got here or why, but when I woke up here, I realized I discovered something more fascinating than my discovery of the hidden realms within my universe."

"The multiverse? Did you find the multiverse here? In this dimension?" Issei asked as he turned his head side to side.

"No. Up there" Rizevim said as he pointed his index finger up in the sky.

"Up... there...?" Issei looked up in the sky and gasped in shock. His heart almost gave out from shock at the sight from above.

The entire sky is cracked and fractured like shattered glass and there was light emitting from within space of the cracks. But struck out the most were the imagines projected from within the cracks spaces. Many of these imagines were showing Issei's life of his live as devil from his reincarnation to his battles, and to his interactions with others people in different place and... different eras.

"What the...?" Some of the imagines Issei was staring didn't correspond with anything regarding his past. One of the imagines he noticed had him dressed up in black costume with a white spider symbol in the center of suit chest. He put on a mask that made he looked like some sort of American superhero and fired out a spider web from his palms and used it to swing into the night with a giant size spider following from behind.

In another imagine Issei noticed a more different, innocent like doppelganger of himself emitting cosmic like aura through his body in form of silver, crimson, and emerald green flowing lines before getting into his Boosted Gear scale mail. Next to him was his rival Vali, who also dressed his scale mail armor. The two had their arms out in the opposite direction of the other. They both shuffled their feet forward closer each other and swung their arms around in sync. They next swung their arms across their body, closing their fist and bring their legs out on the right angle. The duo leaned their their torso's together and clashed their fingers together, and a bright flash emerged from contact. When the flash of the light faded, a being stood in the where Issei's doppelganger and Vali were in crimson armored scale mail and with white and blue highlights.

In third imagine began to noticed a white haired version of himself dressed black clothing. Unlike the last two imagines he saw, something was off of this doppelganger that Issei could tell he was the complete opposite of himself. He looked completely dark, heartless, ruthless, and not perverted one bit. He stood in the some yard of the underworld fill with dead soldiers on the ground. A blast of Power of Destruction was fired at him, but he didn't move an inch. As the beam was inches away from hitting him, a unfamiliar girl with short black hair intervened and block attack with her own magic. The unfamiliar black hair girl jumped away before the white hair Issei encounter his true love Rias. By the look on their faces, neither Rias or the white hair Issei recognized one another and the white hair Issei dashed his way towards Rias for the kill, only to have is attack block by Kiba and his swords. The white hair Issei summoned his Boosted Gear and quickly incapacitate Kiba with one of his tonfas he possessed and leaped to gain some distance. The remaining members of Rias's peerage showed up, ready to fight the white hair Issei head on. The white hair Issei doubled his power and charged towards the Gremory peerage, ready to settle this once for all, till Sirzechs, who appeared out nowhere, knocked the white hair Issei towards nearby wall.

Issei shifted his eyes glimpse on other many imagines the sky had to show. One of the few common imagines he began to noticed was of him was dressed up as an exorcist and serving for Michael and the church. Another had him possessing the Divine Dividing rather than the Boosted Gear. There even a few worlds that seemed that the reality itself is based on a RPG video game.

As Issei continued to watch over the millions of imagines above, there was one in peculiar that he became suddenly glued to. This isn't imagine didn't show him, rather someone else he never seen before. He was a young handsome man in his late teens with a slender body with some muscular tone. He had unkempt spike black hair and sapphire-blue eyes. He was alone in a dark fancy bedroom shirtless, where a red magic circle with the Gremory insignia appeared in the middle of the bedroom. Issei widen his eyes in shock as a familiar redhead girl appeared through the magic circle.

"Bou... chou...?" Issei became too invested with the imagine that he was unaware the space that imagine was project began to expand itself to cover Issei's line of vision. "W-What is she..." Issei became stupefied as recognized this situation. Seeing the irrational and panicked look on Rias's face, Issei could tell that the Rias of that universe is trying to get out her engagement with Raiser. Rias and the black hair teen seemed to be having a conversation where the black hair teen tried to talk Rias, who began stripping, out of sleeping together in the sake of breaking her engagement. But as their bodies got closer and the atmosphere became suddenly inmate after Rias murmured something, the two pressed their bodies together and laid their lips on one another.

Issei's jaw dropped as the black hair teen took the initiative by deepening the kiss and began stripping Rias naked himself. Issei's body tremple as Rias's bare breast leaned against the black hair's teen's naked chest. He feel like throwing up as the black hair teen put his arms around the Rias's bare back and leaning her naked body pressed closer to his. Rias and the black hair teen broke their kiss for air and stared into each other's eyes in the moment of heat. Rias's lovely light blue dazed into the black hair teen's... fiery red eyes? Weren't they sapphire blue just a moment ago?

"Oh? Have you became intrigued what Universe-11255573 has to offer?" Before Issei could continue to observe of what Rias and the black hair teen were about to do, though he could already imagine what was next to come, he turned back to Rivezim, who now looked like he regain his composure.

"Universe-11-what?" Issei asked, raising a brow.

"Universe-11255573." Rizevim corrected as he continued to stare up at the scenery of Rias and the mysterious black hair teen and whatever their doing. "Since there are infinite amount of universes here, they are so hard to follow and keep track of. So I decided to label the ones I've been through. Oh shit! Just look at that girl's face! I never a girl's face so ridicule during sex! Man that guy sure knows how to pleasure a woman!"

"What?" Rizevim just stroke Issei's nerves. Issei knew very well that Rias and the black hair teen were already in heat the moment they kissed. Back before Issei thought that Rias didn't view him as a significant other, he always wondered what would happened if Rias did lose interest him and fall in love for another. If the possibility did happen and Rias displayed her affection to another, Issei swore himself that if the man Rias's chose to be her lover, he wouldn't let his feelings of her get the best of him as long as Rias's lover doesn't hurt Rias in anyway possible and give a happy life.

But now knowing that Rias did in fact have feelings for him, just a mere thought of her falling in love with another man just brought rage and jealous into Issei's heart. If Rizevim was right, and the two of them were doing what he feared, the chances are that Issei might as well go another blind rage and go into Juggernaut Drive.

But he can't. He couldn't allow his feelings to get his best of him. Look what it brought him into.

"O-Oh yeah? Oh you sure that that's the universe you have label as?" He need to keep his mind off of Rias and the black hair teen at all cost. He couldn't take the chance whether or not Rizevim was right.

"It's simple really," Rizevim said, unintentionally following along Issei's intentions. "Haven't you heard the saying that no two snowflakes are alike? The same rule can apply for the multiverse. You've just seen a category of parallel words where you either born with the Divine Dividing instead of a Boosted Gear, born as a demigod, a hybrid of some other race like dragons, descendant of legendary heroes of different mythologies, born without a Sacred Gear, but in return possessed unimaginable power. But in cases like Universe-11255573, there a people born in exclusively in one universe and don't exist in rest. So far I haven't seen this young man in other universes and there are others like him who only exist in only exclusive universes. So don't feel threatened by this young man's presence. I doubt he exist in your universe, especially since history of this universe has been altered because of me."

"Wait at minute! Altered? You mean you didn't just send me to some other universe? You altered history? You altered the history of my universe? But how?" Issei asked.

"It's simple really." Rizevim said as he something out off his cloak and held it in front of Issei. "I've been able to alter reality all thanks to the help of this bad boy."

"Is that... a gem?" Issei looked closely to what Rizevim held in his hand. What Rzevim held was a gem. A shining yellow gem that radiated an ominous, cosmic aura.

"Yes. During my journey throughout the multiverse I was able to stumble this bad boy." Rizevim said as he put the gem away. "Amazing isn't it? It's one of a kind. No where in the multiverse have I encounter so strange phenomenon to manipulate the reality of every universe. The power to shift the reality itself is all in the palm of one's hand. And it's mine. All mine."

Issei couldn't believe it. All it took for reality to be altered was to use the power of one stupid gem... which was under the possession of that mad man.

"Wait! If you had the power to alter my reality this whole time, then did you made this world into your imagine!?" Issei asked frustratingly.

"Oh I wish." Rizevim said. "If I had it my way with the other Isseis, I would just send them into his eternal hell from the very start. However, when it comes to altering reality as a whole, there always a chain reaction that set off the time stream of that universe going spiraling out of control."

_'Other Isseis?' _Before Issei could even say anything, Rizevim quickly continued on speaking.

"When you desired a reality where you never became reincarnated by the Gremory girl, you caused a chain reaction that not only altered your past, but as well the past of everyone else." Issei thought of the dreams he had before waking up into the new reality. "Because of that, not only you deciding not to become a reincarnated affected the future, but past as you see the Old Maou Faction are in control of the Underworld with me, a super devil, in charge of the entire Armilus army."

"Then what about Loki and Kokiabel?" Issei brought up. "I don't find it a coincidence that they put away their pride away and stood so low to join other races."

"Well..." Rizevim grinned a guilty smile as he scratched the back of his head. "Okay you got me. I intentionally gave their memories of the old world back to them. The truth of the matter is that the chain of reaction would have been the same if you didn't get reincarnated by that redhead bitch. The Old Maou Faction would still be in control of the underworld, which the Evil Pieces never come into existence. The tension between the church and the races of the underworld will become more intense to the point where Azazel couldn't reach out for peace and all out war will break loose to not only to those of the biblical faction, but the whole world. It's basically every man for themselves. And you on the other hand are no longer a devil, but a mere weak human with no powers whatsoever. Heck, you probably don't even posses the Boosted Gear anymore since that faker there is now this universe's Sekiryuutei."

"But why? Why are you doing this to me? If you had some grudge against the me of your universe, then why aren't you targeting him instead?" Issei brought, much to Rizevim's displeasure.

Rizevim wiped away the smile on his face as he lips frowned and his eyes turned cold and lifeless. "Haven't you figured it out yet? I loathe you... I loathe your entire existence as a whole." Rizevim's body began to tremble violently. "When I first arrived to this world, I was injured to death by the last encounter with you. I spent my first few years here in this world recovering while I watch alternate versions of you defeating alternate versions of me. It sickened me to know that in very world I'm in, I'm nothing more than a stepping stone to your road of glory. Tell me boy. What would you do if you learned your very existence is meant to become nothing more than stepping stone something else?"

"..." Issei wouldn't know what to say. There were times he felt inferior to others and not that long ago he felt he was under the impression of Rias and the girls was using him, but it doesn't compare what Rizevim is feeling. Just knowing that no matter how hard he he tried, it would be for nothing. It would heartbreaking for Issei if he was in Rizevim's shoes.

"For those first few years I let my body recover and observing the time streams of the multiverse , I began to build rage like never before." Rizevim continued. "As soon I recuperated from my injuries, the first thing I did was to jump into the those universes and killed the you every chance I get. I began a killing spread throughout the multiverse, but stopped my senseless killing till I discover the gem to alter reality and discovered something very interesting about you." His body stopped shaking as he smile menacingly. "I discovered your weakness."

"My weakness?" Issei became petrified as Rizevim snapped his fingers and the environment around them morphed into the classroom of the old school building, where the Occult Research Club met. Issei gasped as he noticed his doppelganger with Rias, Asia, Akeno, Koneko, Kiba, Xenovia, Irina, Gasper, and even Ravel. Rias walked towards the door, where she was stopped by the doppelganger, who asked her where she was going.

"Throughout the multiverse I discovered that despite differences that each universe has, there are similar major key points that many of universes share in common." Rizevim said as he and Issei continued to watch a familiar scenario with Issei's doppelganger and Rias. Rias soon screamed at the doppelganger and ran out of the room. Asia soon followed Rias, but not before chiding the doppelganger. Soon enough everyone else in the room began to scowl at Issei and rebuked him.

"And this here is one of them. Doesn't this scene here makes you feel nostalgic?" Rizevim asked as the doppelganger began to feel overwhelmed by everyone else and stormed out of the room. "It's from here I realized something. You, Sekiryuutei-chin, have a fear of intimacy with other girls. The reason you got this fear is because you became traumatized from that fallen that killed you."

Issei felt a sudden chill down go his back. He wasn't sure what scared him the most: the thought of Raynare crossing his mind or Rizevim knowing more about him than he does.

"It's in this moment I realized that you've become the most vulnerable after your so called friends chastised you for lack of understanding of your so called true love's feeling." Rizevim said as the Issei doppelganger ran out of the room in a panicked. "In majority of these universes, your harem quickly help over come in your problem. However, in some universes..."

The Issei doppelganger began to feel overwhelmed and panicked. He ran out of the room as fasted as he can. He out from the schoolyard and all the way back to his house. The doppelganger began to look enraged all of the sudden as he began to overthink things like Issei did. As the doppelganger reached the boiling point, he began to go on a rant and screamed "No more!". He began to scream out in agony before being enveloped into red light.

Issei shielded his eyes as the red light began to envelope the entire surrounding. When the red light died out, Issei, the knocked Lleu, and Rizevim reappeared to the ancient temple where it contained the sky of the multiverse.

"You shouldn't feel discourage Sekiryuutei-chin. You're not the only one who has fucked up and misinterpret the situation." Rizevim laughed. "The multiverse possessed a range of worlds where it shared your position. In some of them you make it out great okay. In one of those worlds you go stray and become a mercenary. In the one we just saw, you remove your Evil Pieces and join the church in this universe. You, however, got short end of the stick and got duped by yours truly."

Issei mustering all his will power not to have a mental break down. So much has happened so far. First of all his friends gave the coldest shoulder, he nearly gone berserk, the change of his reality, the existence of Rizevim Lucifer, and the multiverse. He can't take it anymore. But if it let out in front of Rizevim, he will get the best of him and all hope of coming home will be lost. He need to keep his mind off everything till he's alone.

"S-So this is the your reason why you're targeting me?" Issei asked as he struggled to keep his composure. "You couldn't defeat your Issei, so you decided to take your anger on his multiverse counterparts during their weakest moments?"

The silvered hair super devil let out a sigh before speaking. "You're right." He confessed admittedly. "Since I could never defeat you from my universe, I took out my anger on his counterparts. To be honest I wouldn't need to take my anger on you or the those I've done wrong too to moment I discovered the gem sooner and used it my universe's Sekiryuutei."

"So why haven't you?" Issei asked.

Rizevim took in another sigh. "Believe me kid. I would lying to myself if I said love to undo everything I done to you and your alternate counterparts, but I would be at peace with myself if I did kill my universe's Sekiryuutei and leave the others alone. However, there's a problem. I'm completely lost. I can't find the portal of my universe. Everyday the sky shows different glimpses of other universes that they are so hard to follow. Every time I feel that I'm one step closer to my universe, I ended up being somewhere else, which just irritates the shit out me. So in away I take out my anger by just torturing you in your weakest moments and go to the next. As soon I'm done having fun here, I'm going to the next universe I see and just kill you of that universe till I just find my universe."

Rizevim snapped his fingers and magic circles appeared underneath him and while another one appeared under Issei and the unconscious Lleu and brought them back ruins of Kuoh Town.

"We'll here's our final stop. Hope you enjoy the rest of your day." Rizevim said, sounding bittersweet as he headed off way in the opposite direction of Issei and Lleu.

"Wait! That's it? You're just leaving?" Issei asked.

"Yeah? What's it to ya?" Rizevim replied without even taking a look at Issei.

"Aren't you going to just kill here and get it over with?"

"Eh?" Rizevim turned Issei with a confused look on his face. "Haven't you even been listening a single word I said? I'm going to have some fun here watching you suffer in the world you have created for yourself. If I killed you now, I see no point of altering reality all together."

"Aren't getting a head of yourself?" Issei questioned.

"Don't worry your ugly little head of yours." Rizevim waved if off. "I've been killing you off from the multiverse for years now. Sure you'll eventually become a big shot here in your universe, but compare to your counterparts in the multiverse you're nothing more than speck of dust compare to their power. So sayonara brat. Let's see how long can you survive here on your own." With that said, a magic circle appeared beneath Rizevim's feet and teleported him off to who knows where.

Now that everything has been cleared and Rizevim gone, Issei collapsed on his knees as his body began to quake. He put his hands behind his hand and brought his face to his thighs. Rain began to pour again as Issei began to wail out everything he held in from the beginning and allow the feeling to sink in. From that night Issei realized two things. One: He's become more weaker than he ever has been, and two: he'll have to do everything his power to get home to the ones he love.

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**Hello everybody! Sorry that this chapter too so long to published. The reason why this took so long that 1) I felt that last chapter felt very lackluster due to it being very short and left everyone lost and confused. 2) I need to speak some of my favorite authors and friends to get their permission to use their story, 3) I just got back into school and started my 2nd year in community college, and 4) I've been also occupied with Devil of the Apocalypse and helping a writer called Mega Trainer, who I'm happily declared is taking over my time traveling story "A Second Chance" and decided to write the story for everyone to enjoy. So please show some support for him. His story is call Highschool DxD: A Temporal Revision.  
**

**Now on to the Multiverse! First off the reason why I want to speak about the Multiverse because there hasn't been much talk of such in DxD or in Fan Fic, though I did see some stories that had the world "Multiverse" in their title, but they haven't touched upon reading it. Another is that lately I've been coming back to American Comic Books and just finished reading stories like Grant Morrison's Multiversity and Dan Slott's Spider-Verse story from Dc and Marvel respectively and thought it would be cool to bring such idea to the fan fiction archive and be the first to introduced it. 3rd, which kind correspond with the second, is that lately I've been noticing a cliche in DxD fan fics, which many of you are too familiar with my ranting how majority of the DxD stories are basically rewrites of the original canon plot. **

**So after reading Spider-Verse and Multiversity, which contain characters of What if scenarios (Marvel) and Else World tales (DC), similar to what DxD franchises has with variety of stories they have here along with the crossovers like Naruto and etc... So brings me to my next topic, what is the multiverse in my story. **

**The multiverse I'm talking about is none other than... the entire DxD Fan Fic franchise. Yes, if you haven't figured it out already, the entire DxD franchise is in fact the multiverse where each universe is different from the next. The first universe where Issei is dressed as Spiderman is from "Issei is Venomous" fan fic story written by LordXSesshomaru, the one with Issei doing a dragon ball z fusion with Vali from story called "DxD: The Powerful Ones" written by**** WarriorMan199456, and the last one with the silver hair assassin is from story called "Broken Wings" by blueprintV. The story where Issei panics and runaway from home is "A Man's Heart" story written by SSJ3 Kyuubi Gohan. I originally was going to "Strayed Red Emperor Dragon" instead of "A Man's Heart" but the writer of the story hasn't contacted me back. **

**The numbering of the universe like _Universe-9446965 _and Universe-_11255573 _are the ID numbers that were given by Fan Fiction when they are published. For example "A Fragile's Heart" ID number is ****11149519, so its universe will be label as Universe-11149519. The ID numbers are underneath the title of each book. It's not hard to miss. ****Kudos to anyone figured what stories are Universe _9446965_ and Universe _11255573\. _**

**Though it's far fetched that I'm mention this "Multiverse" since we won't see more about this Multiverse again for a long time and I know nobody is going to take a chance do crossover stories within the DxD franchise or its crossovers counterparts. I had intentions of doing a multiverse crossover story with A Second Chance/A New Opportunity with Red Savior's Advent/Awakening of the Red Savior's story, establishing the multiverse, and do a Marvel's Spider verse event , but due to time, writer's block and other stuff, I couldn't. So hopefully I hope people accept his unofficial declaration of making the DxD franchise and its crossover as its multiverse. **

**Now time the preview of the next chapter and arc:**

**_"I shouldn't have do it. I shouldn't have changed the universe"_ \- Issei Hyoudou. **

**With nothing more than the guilt of destroying his universe and the will to survive, Issei has spent six months in the alternate reality. But with no progress of figuring out how to get back home, what else can Issei do on his own? **

_**"What the hell are you even doing? Don't even you care about you own comrades?" - Isiah**_

_**Even if he goes to his friends of this alternate reality, they're not the people he once knew. **_

_**"Nya? Is it me or have we met before?" -Shirone **_

**Despite not knowing who he is, it doesn't mean the feeling is all gone. **

_**"Who are you? How do you know my sister's name?"**_** -? **

**Even though he had chance go back home with his friends of the alternate reality, the people he's associated with share dark deep secrets that even their counterparts might have, especially to the person he loves. **

_**"Tell me Issei... What are you... Are you the man who possessed the power of a dragon? Or are you the dragon who possessed the man? So tell me Issei, are you one or are you... the other? " **_

**With his chances low and no power to struggle against the threats that are to come, Issei must make a decision in terms of power to survive, but will this decision will cost him his sanity? **

**Next time in A Fragile's Heart: A Brand New Day **

**Azazel: If everything you say is true, then it could explain everything what happen to this world. **


	6. Brand New Day

**_A Fragile Heart_**

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**_Hello everyone and happy new year XD! Gunmare here to start the new year right with the new chapter of A Fragile Heart. Sorry it took so long. With my semester over I finally caught up with writing my other stories, like Devil of the Apocalypse, which I published on Christmas Day. Originally I want to publish this on Christmas, but since this was the beginning of a new arc, it would be best to publish it on New Years. As always I don't own DxD, go down after the story for another author note I have in store for you. _**

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**_Second Arc: Prologue: Brand New Day_**

_"Ise..."_ Issei woke up in a pit of darkness to the soothing sound of a familiar voice. He turned his head back and forth till he spotted a white light in the distance. He rushed over there and saw the back of a familiar girl with long, flowing crimson hair walking into the distance.

"Bouchou! Please wait up! Bouchou!" Rias stopped to the sound of Issei's voice and his footsteps. Issei sighed in relief to see his beloved master in such a long time. "Is it really you?"

_"...I should be the one be asking that question. How long has it been since I last saw you." _Rias said without looking back to Issei.

"Ah... Well..." Issei adverted his eyes and lower his head to the ground, unsure to how to respond. He haven't seen her or anyone else from the Occult Research Club for months and the last time they got together, things didn't end will. After a moment of silence, Issei took a deep breath and raised his head back up. "B-Bou-no, wait. Rias, I'm sorry."

_"What did you just say?" _Rias turned around, shocked to either Issei's apology, hearing her name being called by Issei or even both. When Issei looked directly at her face, her beautiful eyes were covered by her crimson bangs.

"I'm sorry." Issei repeated. "I was being insensitive towards you. I've been leading you and the rest girls on. I know I should have responsible back to you and the others sooner, b-but... I was scared."

_"Scared?" _Rias cocked her head.

Issei nodded. "Yes. I was afraid of the rejection if you didn't reciprocate my feelings. I was scared that if I tried to take the next step in our relationship, you heartlessly end the relationship we had and leave me. But I know that its no longer the case! I know you share the same feelings as I do a-and if you want to... I'm willing to take the chance of exploring where this relationship could lead to. R-Rias?"

Rias cupped her mouth as tears run flowing down her cheek. _"Y-You mean it? Do you really love me?"_

"Of course! I loved you ever since I became a reincarnated Devil." Issei admitted. "You're the woman that I love. You're the one I want to protect! You're one I want to spent the rest of my life with you! I love you Rias Gremory!"

_" Oh Issei..." _Rias covered her entire face and lowered her head. Issei silently stood still and watched Rias soft sobbed into her hands. After a moment of silence between the two, Rias took off her hands off her face and raised her head back up. Issei could see her beautiful light blue eyes, looking relieved and jovial to hear Issei's confession. _"...I-I'm happy. I've been waiting to hear those words for a long time now."_

"Rias..." Issei was about to walk up to his beloved master, but stopped as he noticed a pair of hands emerged from behind Rias. Issei gasped as a familiar figure emerged from behind Rias and wrapped his arms around around. It was young man from Universe-_11255573_. What was he doing here? "R-Rias... W-Why... Why is he... Do-Don't tell me... your..."

Rias lowered her head again, hiding eyes underneath her bangs. _"You left me heartbroken Ise... Not only you mistreated my feelings, but you vanished for months... You were gone for so long that I thought you'll never return... I had no choice but to move on...' _

"Move... on...?" It was Issei feared the most out of everything. The thought of his beloved master find interest in other people had kept Issei up for nights. He let go of those fears months ago after he realized his master did harbor romantic feelings for him. "No... It can't be... No! I won't accept this!"

The space in between Issei and the couple began to pull them apart in the opposite direction. Issei tried to run over towards the couple with everything he got, but he was easily pulled back by the darkness and slowly consumed by it. With everything fading into black, the last thing Issei saw from the distance was kiss between Rias and the mysterious black hair teen.

* * *

"Guah!" Issei woke up gasping for air. He rose up from his bed with his body covered in sweat and mouth panting for air. He covered his mouth as he felt nauseous and was ready to vomit any second now. But after a few seconds to let his breathing calm down and put his mind at ease, Issei let out a sigh of relief and looked around the suite he was in.

As Issei put his feet to the ground, a small gray wolf cub that laid right next to his bed woke up. It happily got up and shook its tail, delighted to see its master up and awake. Seeing this, Issei crouched down and pet his cub's head. "Morning Asena. Who's a good girl? You are. Oh yes you are."

He got back up and headed straight towards bathroom while stripping pieces of the clothes to the floor. Asena happily trailed her master till Issei shut the bathroom door on her. The small cub whimpered as she sat in front of the door, waiting for her master to come out.

Letting out another sigh, Issei stepped into the bathroom and turned on the shower head. He stood lifeless still as drips of freezing water from the shower head poured down on his skin. Issei leaned his head to the wall as memories of his latest dream flashed into his mind. After taking the moment to remember kiss between Rias and the mysterious young man, he turned off the shower head and got out of the tub.

He picked up a towel and dried himself off. He turned to the sink and saw his reflection on the mirror. His eyes were dull and weary while his eyelids were baggy. It looked Issei hasn't spelt well or not all for days.

_**"You really need to get back some rest. You can't keep this up much longer." **_

The voice in his head was right. Issei hadn't a good night of sleep in months. Ever since his encounter with Rizevim and the multiverse, he's been having nothing but nightmares keeping him up late at night and they revolve the same thing: Rias and the black hair young man. In very dream he had the mysterious black hair teen was always there, embracing Rias in one form or another. Dreams like the he recently had were one of the milder ones. In some of the more other dreams he had were more intense compare to a simply kiss between Rias and the mysterious fiery red eyed man.

"I know you mean well, but it's not as simply as you think it is." Issei murmured softly. "No matter how hard I try to dream of something, I always end up seeing Rias in his arms, Ddraig."

* * *

_It happened sometime after the Rizevim has left out Issei and Lleu in the ruins of Kuoh Academy. Issei sat on the grass, wailing his heart out from everything that occurred to him in the pouring rain. _

_"I... Is... Ise..." Issei raised his head up in shock to hear his name to be faintly called. He turned to the injured Lleu slowly raising his hand in the air. _

_"Lleu!" Issei rushed over to his side and held his hand and slowly re. "W-What are you doing!? You shouldn't be moving. You need to rest." _

_"F-For what?" Lleu asked in weak tone. "I-I don't have much time left anyways..." _

_"What?" Issei looked down and noticed puddle of blood coming from the injuries Lleu gained from Rizevim. "Y-You're bleeding to death! Hold Lleu, I-I-" _

_"Issei listen!" Lleu interrupted loudly with a loud cough at the end. Issei remained silent as lleu panted softly. The two stared right into each other's eyes. "I-Is it t-true what Rizevim said? We-Were you... responsible for this?" _

_Issei nodded his head. "Yes." The used to be devil said with a heavy heart. _

_"Y-You do know what you have to right?" _

_"Yes." Issei repeated. "I have to set everything back the way it has to be, no?" _

_Lleu slowly bobbed his head. "It has to be done. Many lives are at stake, including the balance of the universe. If you don't fix everything the way it was before, this world will fall under the hands of a mad man who has nothing better to do but get revenge on some pity grudge he has on someone that isn't even from our world. Ise... Promise me that you'll stop him from ruining our world." _

_"B-But how? You heard him right? He killed hundreds, thousands of my alternate counterparts. H-How can I defeat him on my own?" _

_"No. You won't be alone. Y-You'll have this on your side..." Lleu said as the hand he held with Issei's emitted a light red aura. _

_"L-Lleu what are you doing!?" Issei asked, sensing a surge of energy flowing into his hand. Issei was about to let go of Lleu's hand, but the Celtic Sekiryuutei tightened his grasp on Issei's hand. _

_"If you're going put this world the way it was, I must return what's rightfully yours." Lleu confessed. His body began to enveloped in a bright white light as parts of his body began to fade. _

_Issei's eyes widened. "Lleu, don't! People are depending on you right? You can't just put your responsibility on someone like myself!" _

_Lleu gave out a weak smile. "Please... Don't be like that... I know in the bottom of my heart... that you're the one... who can... unite this fractured world into the one you use to be... Just... promise me... that... you..." From beginning from his leg, Lleu's body slowly began to diminished away into small fragments of light . "...will go... back home and that girl that you love her... with all you heart..." _

_With that said, Lleu closed once last time as the rest of his body disbursed way into multiple small particles of light. Issei watched passively as the Lleu's particles of light soared up the raining cloudy sky, never to be seen again. _

_Issei remained in the same position with his head up raised up lifelessly, unsure what to do next. _

**_"P-Part..ner..." _**_Issei winched from the sound of a familiar voice in his head. He immediately looked down at his hands, his left one in particular and noticed on the back of it a green orb of light. _

_"D-Draig...?" Issei muttered out his partner's name at best as he could. _

**_"Yes Partner... I've finally have return... to my rightful place." _**

* * *

Lleu used up all of his remaining strength to give Issei back his Boosted Gear. Through the the transfer Ddraig immediately regained his memories of Issei after accessing his memories in his mind. After two reacquainted with one another, Ddraig revealed Lleu did more than just transfer the Boosted Gear to him. According to Ddraig, Lleu also has transfer fragments of his power into Issei to use in his battle against Rizevim, those powers are remained in state of dormant till Issei figure a way out awakened them. Plus not only that, but Ddraig revealed to Issei that he was in possession of all Lleu's weapons that were held inside of the Boosted Gear and the weapons that Issei held from his world, like the Ascalon and the Dividing Gear, were also included, much to their surprise.

"He didn't have to do it. We could have figured out a way together to save our world from Rizevim and the Armilus." Issei said, getting out of the bathroom. He dropped his towel on top of Asena and went to the closet to pick out the clothes he's going to wear.

_**"He wasn't going to make it." **_Ddraig argued. **_"You saw his injuries. He was left untended the whole time while Rizevim revealed the multiverse to you." _**

Issei clicked his tongue in annoyance. Ddraig was right. Lleu was easily taken down by Rizevim, who hadn't even broken a sweat. Issei should have tended to him sooner, but even if he did, he didn't know what to do. He never did had any actually experience giving medical care to others before.

_*Knock, Knock* _

"Hey Ise! Are you awake?" A voice asked through the door of Issei's suite.

"Ah yes! I'm awake Reverend Shidou!" Issei replied as he put on the finishing touches of his soldier's uniform before heading to the door. He opened the door to see a middle aged reverend with short light brown hair and familiar friendly violet eyes. "Morning Reverend. It's good to see you up in the morning."

Reverend Shidou let out a sigh and put his hand on Issei's shoulder. "Really Ise. I told multiple times before that you didn't have to call me that while we're alone. Just call me Toujou Oji-san when we're alone? Got it?"

Issei smiled bitterly. "I would love to call you that, honestly. But I haven't seen you ever since I was nothing more than a mere kid. We were never that close to begin anyways."

"Oh Ise-kun, you really shouldn't be talking like that." Reverend Shidou rebuked. "Sure we haven't kept in touch with one another in a long time but that doesn't mean you meant nothing to me and my family. You should've seen Irina after we left Japan. She was heartbroken to see you go."

The Issei was talking to was Touji Shidou, a very important pastor and agent of the Protestant Church and also Irina's dad. He met up with him a couple weeks after that tragic night.

With Lleu died and no knowing his location or even his own existence, Issei decided to journey through the nearest Nephilim base to seek shelter. The closest base Ddraig mention was in the one in Kyoto, which Ddraig also added that Kyoto itself has became the main headquarters of the Japanese branch of the Nephilim. After making a single burial ground for Lleu and everyone who lost their lives from the Armilus and packing everything resourceful into one hiker's backpacking, Issei sent off on a journey on foot to Kyoto.

The journey was difficult for the young Sekiryuutei. With the train stations and cell phone service all down due to the war, he had nothing to rely on except for his wits and old traveling map he salvage from the destroyed houses in his neighborhood. He spent the first week walking to ghost town to ghost town while speaking to Ddraig regarding his life in the alternate reality, his tenure with Lleu, and the war between the Nephilim and Armilus.

Just like the his time in the original timeline, Ddraig and his longtime rival Albion's spirit were sealed into their respective Sacred Gears and have spent generations battling with one another; however, there some alternation in their history in this new reality. A good example is a change of multiple hosts. Both Heavenly Dragons ended up having different hosts to point of Ddraig having host that originally belong to Albion and vice versa till Ddraig ended up with Lleu.

Lleu was an interesting case to Issei for multiple reasons. For starters his backstory was very reminiscing similar to another backstory to another Heavenly Dragon Issei knew very well. Lleu was the descendant of the famous deity from Celtic Religion, Lugh, the almighty God that's place in the top ten strongest beings in the world, and son of a wrench. Due to his blood being "tainted" with blood of a mortal and being in the possession of the legendary Longinus, Lleu became an outcast in his clan and ran away. The young boy would have died days later if his life wasn't been saved my none other than the Governor of the Grigori himself, who raised the boy into the splendid young man that he was till his death.

Hearing of Lleu's origin brought up many concern questions regarding the Hakuryuukou of this reality. Did Vali ever become the Hakuryuukou of this reality or was he swap with someone like Ddraig did. If the answer wasn't the latter, then what ever happened to Vali then? From what Ddraig said, there is a Hakuryuukou among this reality and he's siding on the Armilus and acted as Lleu's antithesis. Where Lleu was kind and merciful, the Hakuryuukou was vile and cruel.

During the war between the Nephilim and the Armilus, the two fought multiple times, but neither one was able to beat one another nor did they knew each other's identity. Whoever was using the Divine Dividing was clearly someone you shouldn't mess with. Hearing everything about this Hakuryuukou brought shivers down Issei's spine. He became frightened to cross path with the mysterious Hakuryuukou in his current state.

Speaking of the war between the Armilus and the Nephilim, it turned out that Lleu had a critical role in the war for the Nephilim since he was their ace against the Armilus till his death by Rizevim's hand.

With Ddraig's stories helping to passed the time, Issei eventually came across to a ghost town where coincidentally soldiers from the Nephilim were there in search for any survivors. Issei ended up being "capture" by the soldiers and interrogated by none other than Touji himself. Issei became relieved after the man recognized him and didn't question too thoroughly by him. Since then Issei has been traveling under Touji's tutelage throughout to the human world from Japan to America to Europe, training under him for the last six months.

"Ise-kun, there is someone I want to you to meet."

After Issei said good morning to Touji, both men and Asena left the dormitory room to the Nephilim's military base's mess hall to eat enjoy some breakfast, where Touji revealed interesting news to Issei about someone he's going to meet today.

_'Wait don't tell me...' _Issei stopped half away from putting the fork in his mouth, realizing who was going to meet. Telling by Touji's face, there was one person in mind he was going to face and he knew despite wanting to see this person, he knew that he can't see this said person at all cost. Right before he could say anything, he noticed two individuals walking into the mess hall.

"Papa!" Issei dropped his fork into the ground as he heard from one the duo all the way from the entrance of the mess hall. His heart dropped as memories from old home flashed in his mind. He lowered his head down as Touji stood from his seat and smiled delighted at the duo heading their away.

"Irina! My sweet daughter! It's been so long since we last met!" Without even the need to look up, Issei could already tell that Touji walked up to the of the two individuals and embraced one of them into a big bear hug.

"Oh Daddy, I missed you so much." Issei's right hand quivered from the sound of the familiar voice. He used his other hand to grab the shaking one and make it stop. His hand stopped shaking, but without a moment noticed, his leg began to be shake as well.

"Irina, look who I have right. It's Ise-kun! The little boy you use to play with back in Kuoh Town." Issei cursed under his breath at Touji for introducing him to last person he wanted to meet.

"I-Ise-kun!? Is that really you?" Issei swallowed his saliva down his throat and mustered his strength to raise his head up to see friend from the past. When the two made eye contact, Issei's jaw dropped like if he seen a ghost.

Who stood next to Touji was a young girl around with his age with long snow hair tied into twintails and crimson red eyes. She dressed into familiar tight skin black Exorcist combat suit with a white cloak on top. Despite the change in hair and eye colored, Issei could easily recognized her as Irina Shidou, his childhood friend and the Ace of Michael the Archangel's Brave Saint suit.

"Oh my g-goodness..." Irina's eyes got watery and she cupped her mouth. She approached him slowly and Issei stood up from his seat. Issei held his breath as the snow white haired Irina reached her hand toward his face. He passively allowed Irina's hand to touch his face and he put his hand on top of hers. "I-It is you."

What happened next left Issei stupefied. He was about to say something, but before any words could escape his lips, Irina shoved herself right onto Issei's body and sobbed into his chest. "Oh thank goodness! You're alive Ise-kun! You're alive!"

_"Mou! Ise-kun, sure is a no-no! Poor Rias-san!" _Issei cringed as the memories of Irina's last words to him in the original reality flashed in his mind. His instincts was telling him to shove her off him and get away from her at best as he can, but he couldn't find the heart to do it. Rather he put slowly put his arms around her waist and brought her closer to him.

"Y-Yeah... I'm fine Irina, I'm fine." He murmured softly into her ear. "I-It good to see you again. I see you that you dyed hair and decided to wear contacts."

"Oh this..." The two parted and Irina put a hand on her through her white hair. "Ah well this is..."

Before Irina could answer, Issei put his hand up, stopping her from speaking any further. "I know what you've been through."

The white hair and the red eyes, she reminded him Freed Sellzen, the strayed exorcist who only become one in the pleasure of killing monsters and devils and Siegfried, the wielder of five demonic swords and member of the Hero Faction, who also once served at the church. Both men gained their white hair and red eyes from experiencing strenuous training from the institution in the church.

So the million dollar question is what made Irina to take the vigorous training in the church's institution? Issei turned to Irina's partner, who had also have the matching white hair and crimson red eyes. Unlike Irina, which her white hair was long and her red eyes were friendly and filled with high hopes, her partner's hair was chin length and her eyes were intimidating and filled with despair. Issei recognize this girl as well.

"X-Xenovia..." Issei blurted out spontaneously.

"Yes?" Xenovia asked in her old serious tone that Issei remembered when he first met her. Issei shuddered, remembering how much he loathed Xenovia for the way she was as an exorcist of the church.

_"Even I, who is dense at these sorts of things thought you were a bit off, Ise." _Issei grimaced and Xenovia picked it up on the spot.

"What? Does my presence disturb you?" Xenovia asked, sounding very defensively.

"N-No. Sorry if I looked at you the wrong way." Issei apologized. He walked up to Xenovia and extended his hand out. "I'm Issei Hyoudou. It's an honor to meet you."

Xenovia looked down at Issei's hand and looked back up. "Xenovia Quarta." She introduced herself, not accepting his handshake.

_'Quarta? Isn't that Griselda's surname?' _Issei wondered. He shrugged it off and pulled his hand down. "So what brings the two of you to Rome?"

Rome was Italy's branch headquarters of the Nephilim. Issei has spent most of his time here in Rome training with Touji and other human recruits while he wasn't on minor mission with Touji and his squad.

"Our unit has return from long and strenuous liberation mission from Africa." Irina informed him. "Thanks to the grace of our lord, we were able to free the innocent people from those corrupt devils and monsters."

"Is that so." Issei put up a forceful smile. He could feel his insides being twisted from Irina's cheerful and insensitive words. "Praise the lord that you came back safe and sound."

"I wish we could say the same of our squad." Irina said with a sadden smile across her face. "We lost a lot of lives during that mission. So what about you Ise-kun, have you been on a few missions?"

"Yes." Issei nodded. "Though I would rather called them errands. I've been assisting your father here into aiding the civilians and refugees who lost their homes to the Armilus. I haven't actually got into any combat missions or fought it in the front lines like you and your partner have and I have just finished finishing doing my training here at the institution here in Rome."

"So you'll be deploying soon." Xenovia butted in. "Have you found out which squad you're going to be joining in?"

"No, not yet." Issei said. "I was going to find that out today. I have no idea who I'll be battling side by side with."

"Oh I might have an idea who'll you be siding with." Touji said with a mischievous grin on his face.

"You do?" Issei raised a brow in curiosity. Then it hit him. "Wait don't tell me I'm joining Irina's squad? Did you had hand in this?"

"I would be lying if I said I did, but the truth of the matter is that I had no hand in this." Touji confessed. "You've displayed extraordinary results in the institution compare to the other candidates ever had in six months and because of it you'll be recruited by Irina's squad, which are a group consist of talented youths you and the girls here."

"No kidding." That was the last thing Issei wanted to hear. He knew was going to be deploy into to combat soon, and would've suspected to joining some of the other new recruits, but this didn't suspect this to happened and with the alternate version of Irina and Xenovia of all people.

Issei doesn't have anything against the girls to begin with. He was relieved that both Irina and Xenovia are still alive, despite both girls having white hair and red eyes but he didn't want to work with them because he feared being "too attached to them." His mission is to revert the world back it was and doesn't want to see neither of these girls or anyone from the Occult Research Club's counterpart to get in the way of that. If they did, he wondered if he had to the heart to "eliminate" the counterparts and their reality when he puts it back the way it was.

"No way! Can't you believe Xenovia!? We'll have fighting someone as extraordinary as Ise-kun fighting at our side." Irina exclaimed excitedly as she held onto Issei's arm. She turned back to Issei and said, "You have to meet our commander of our unit. He appears cold and indifferent like Xenovia, but he's a nice person once you get to know him. Oh here he comes."

Issei turned towards the entrance of the mess hall and gaped at the young handsome gentleman stepping in the mess hall. He was young Italian man around Issei's age with long following blonde hair that goes down his waist and intimidating grey eyes. He was about two meters tall with lean and tone body. indigo pants with a sleeveless shirt, and a belt. He also wore brown boots, gauntlets with a pauldron over his left shoulder.

"Hey Isiah!" Irina called out, grabbing the young man's attention. " Come here!" She beckoned by waving her hand.

The young gentleman complied and walked over toward Issei, Touji, and the girls. "Yes Irina?"

"Isiah, meet my childhood friend Issei Hyoudou." Irina said, introducing Issei to the young man named Isiah. "Ise-kun, say hello to Isiah Strada, the adoptive son of his Eminence Vasco Strada."

Issei continued to stare at Isiah in disbelief. Issei knew this man in front of him off the bat. Despite the change in physical appearance, Issei could easily recognized this man by his facial expression and his dark grey eyes. He staggered back and almost tripped backward if it weren't for Irina holding on to him. He took in one deep breath and murmured one word.

"Kiba..."

* * *

_**Hello everybody! Yes, this prologue chapters end with Issei reuniting with Irina and Xenovia, who are know having red eyes and white hair like Freed and Siegfried in the original timeline and met with Kiba, now known as Isiah Strada, the adoptive son of Vasco Strada. Due to the change in the timeline, Kiba was never rescued by Rias since the Evil Pieces never came to existence and he was instead rescued by his Eminence and raised under him while both Irina and Xenovia, under mysterious circumstance (which will be talked through the story) went through crucial training that lead them to develop Marie Antoinette Syndrome (look it up if you don't know what it mean.) **_

**_In this arc will focus on what has become of the church while (hopefully) the story develop into other parts of this alternate DxD reality like the Grigori and Underworld. Issei meeting up with his friends' counterpart is the beginning of which will lead up to find what happen to the other DxD members and how their lives are in this alternate reality. _**

**_Also I have something I'm going to have clarify off-screen. For starters I originally didn't want to kill of Lleu, but decided to only because I couldn't "write up" a proper scenario explaining why Issei hadn't meet with Azazel or meeting with Azazel, who could literally the only one who can help Issei in this predicament, over this last six months. I originally going to keep Lleu act as Issei's foil and help awakened his Boosted Gear, but decided not to because as right now, Issei hasn't obtained "Balance Breaker" yet and I'm going to save that down the line. _**

**_And also even though I did mention that I won't be touching the "multiverse" since this story focus on the reality shift, I decided to "torture" Issei with the nightmare of the mysterious black hair and Rias (which if you want to find out what exactly lead up to that in that universe, read my new story "Daredevil" to find out,) since that will play a salient role in Issei's development in his time in the AU and awakening his Balance Breaker. _**

**_Now up to the preview of the next chapter: _**

**_Issei is off to his first mission with Irina, Xenovia, and Isiah, Yuuto Kiba's alternate reality counterpart. And their mission: to go on an envoy mission with an important official of the Nephilim and go to Vampire Faction to join their side. But with the Vampire Factions under new management and the Armilus making their advance on the vampires, its up to Issei to save the day as he met up with a familiar person who can play a vital role on whether or the vampires will become the Nephilim's ally or their enemy. _**

**_Next time in A Fragile Heart: The Kingdom in the Mist Pt 01 _**

**_Issei: Even if I told you what happened to me on the night the Armilus attacked my hometown, you wouldn't believe me._**


End file.
